A 1,000-room JW Marriott convention hotel will
anchor the $425-million hotel complex planned for the southwest corner of West and Washington streets. But it won't be the
project's only attraction. A secondary hotel building along Washington Street will be one of the city's largest hotels in
its own right. Plans call for a Courtyard by Marriott with 254 rooms and a SpringHill Suites with 196. This brand-new rendering,
from developers White Lodging and REI Investments, shows the view from White River State Park. (The 34-story JW is outlined
in gray.) Construction is scheduled to begin this summer for a target opening of March 2010. Plans also call for conversion
of the high-rise portion of an existing Courtyard hotel into a Fairfield Inn & Suites.
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Welcome to Property Lines, Indy's source for neighborhood real estate news. Your host is Scott Olson, IBJ's real estate beat
reporter. Edited by Cory Schouten.
A 1,000-room JW Marriott convention hotel will
anchor the $425-million hotel complex planned for the southwest corner of West and Washington streets. But it won't be the
project's only attraction. A secondary hotel building along Washington Street will be one of the city's largest hotels in
its own right. Plans call for a Courtyard by Marriott with 254 rooms and a SpringHill Suites with 196. This brand-new rendering,
from developers White Lodging and REI Investments, shows the view from White River State Park. (The 34-story JW is outlined
in gray.) Construction is scheduled to begin this summer for a target opening of March 2010. Plans also call for conversion
of the high-rise portion of an existing Courtyard hotel into a Fairfield Inn & Suites.
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Laura-the festivals and tastings are free. What does is strengthen the sense of community with activities. What are those empty lots doing for the Village? it's sad you can't see the good that this progress can do for the area. No one is requiring anyone to shop there. I guess you'd rather see a Dollar store move in or no, we'd rather see the property stand empty b/c change is out of the question.
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Read down to the part about Brizzi. Someone needs to subpoena his "purchases" of Red RockPictures and Cellstar and his corresponding bank records, I mean c'mon, I'd like to see his alcohol usage records, too. http://diana-vice.blogspot.com/2011_01_01_archive.html
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Wonder if my neighborhood can advertise our "retention" pond and act like it is a beach too?
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a new record at the '11 salebration until they realized that it was a futile effort to get their crapwagon moter and crapwagon car up speed. And then they just quietly slunk off into the night and never spoke of it again. Nothing to see here folks.
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millions for putting a company's bumper sticker on one of its Lolas. But you gotta take what you can get.
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Neat.
It would have been nice to at least try to have some form of cohesiveness with the JW. But this just looks like a tacked on box to the glass covered JW.
I also would have preffered this to be a Renaisannce as the original plans called for rather than a SpringHilll and Courtyard.
I sometimes thing this blog is filled with frustrated, wannabe architects...
I would think most frequent business travelers would choose the University Place Hotel, Conrad, or Dora Brothers hotel in the area instead of a drab chain hotel of standard sleeping rooms with little if any common space, meeting rooms, or amenities.
The staggered room price points and amenities between the three hotel complex won't matter if travelers are finding higher level non Marriott accommodations elsewhere for the same or better price.
This project holds great promise, if the entire hotel campus is made unique and compelling as a destination, and each property beats local rivals in their class on VALUE ADDED, not price.
Overall, the design is not exactly inspiring, but at least we can see that there is not going to be ground level parking fronting the street here, so that is reassuring. The Dora project by the Luke is awful mainly for its suburban parking lot and lack of interaction with the street that it fronts. We don't get that here, and that is the major plus. The colors are only this drab sand and grey due to the drab colors that are common in downtown Indy, and people like many of the commentators here clamoring for developers to harmonize with the existing built environment. New Urbanism is an ideology of development that has quite a few good points, but asking for it to be taken whole at all times will lead to frustration and a rather bland built environment.
It would not have cost dramatically more to design a building that complimented the JW-M design by curving along the bend of Washington St. at this point. They could have even kept their stupid loading loop by putting it on the inward side of the building.
And that's just one idea I thought of in like 5 minutes.
No connected walkway to the JW convention center?
Common underground parking?
No common loading docks?
At this point, I really don't care whether the primary material is glass, brick, stone, or papier mache, just please give us a site layout that is complementary to at least one, if not all of the surrounding streets. Walk around downtown and try to find another hotel, or other building, that features a stairwell appendage protruding out toward a street. I would suggest wearing good walking shoes, because you might be out there awhile.
To those critical of the people on here that would like a better project, please remember that WE ARE PAYING FOR THIS. It doesn't seem like too much to ask for a development that serves the public interest (aside from just being a large hotel) when tens of millions of tax dollars are financing the project.
I think a re-design is in order. Plus, the views of the breathtaking....other wing of windows reminds me of Forest or Briscoe at IU. I'll rent a room there please!
Design is one component of a project, and certainly an important one. But it should never trump the economic function of the development. Here, we have a much needed project that will contribute to the living, breathing city that is Indianapolis. It provides affordable rooms, within walking distance of the mall and most downtown restaurants. It is absolutely necessary to keep the convention business we have, and to take advantage of the additional convention space coming on line soon.
A city is made by people and money, and developmet brings both. Trying to kill viable projects because you don't like the way they look is a disservice to this city.
Not trying to tick everyone off, as I agree with a lot of the constructive comments. I too would like to see some of them incorporated. But reading Ablerock's comment that we accept mediocre crap really bothered me. I accept development that stimulates my local economy, increases the tax base (and I know there's property tax abatements, but more people spend more money downtown and we tax sales, restaurants and hotels), and provides services needed to the community. I don't want to nix a project that serves a purpose because it isn't pretty enough. That's not accepting mediocre crap, that's understanding that in the real world, people and money are what matters.
I'm sorry my comment bothered you, but what I said is true: Indianapolis is continually getting bent over aesthetically for the sake of economic development.
And you're right, people do matter. But doesn't their quality of life matter as well? Isn't the appreciation of art and beauty part of what makes us human? Or do we just work, eat, and drive? When did we lose our connection to the built environment? When did we forget the impact that our surroundings have on us? When did we lose our sense of excellence? We are the ones who live here, who have to look at these buildings day-in and day-out, not the developers. Does anyone really think our welfare is anywhere on their list of priorities? That they're doing this to improve our city?
If there is a market to build these structures, if there is money to be made from our collective wallets, then the city needs to exercise some backbone and push for more excellent, compelling architecture. They need to do it for all of us. Just having a hotel that serves a purpose doesn't cut it in the rest of the world. If, as you say, money and people are what matters, than we need to get a bit more competitive. The rest of the world, that next-level city that we aspire to, is running laps around us when it comes to architecture.
Architecture matters. If you don't understand that, you haven't traveled enough, or been paying attention to what goes on anywhere else in the world.
Developers want to build here. It is not random, there are reasons for it. We have every right as a city to demand more sophisticated architecture. The developers will do it because there is money to be made. They won't do it of their own accord, because their motivation is financial, not the improvement of of Indianapolis.
It seems that some people's attitude towards development is one of desperation. C'mon in! Do whatever you want! Just don't leave! Please don't leave! We need you! Build whatever you want!
No one is saying we should nix projects. We want to see them improved. We are trying to elevate our collective standards. We want a beautiful city.
My standards for what architecture in Indianapolis should look like are set by the best buildings in the greatest cities of the world: Chicago, Paris, Tokyo, London, New York, etc.
What are your standards?
This is a design issue. When $425M is being spent -- $50M from public subsidy -- the additional cost of decent design is insignificant and should be assumed.
They just need to invest the money necessary for a 50+ year investment in a prime location located between the White River State Park and the extended convention center/baseball park. The concentration should be on the mix of amemities with complementary designs, facades, and layouts instead of short term thinking of throw away buildings, cheapest price points, and fastest return on investment.
They should drop the Springhill Suites and replace it with a Residence Inn/Marriott ExecuStay concept since it would duplicate the Courtyard concept.
JW Marriott with its convention meeting space and luxury amenities with the highest pricing, Courtyard with it suites and complementary happy hour with medium pricing, and Residence Inn with its small kitchens and extended stay amendities with medium pricing for longer periods of time would be a great product mix making this campus a destination in itself.
Clearly the Courtyard on the northwest side of Indianapolis with its Spanish facade, all suites room layout, and amenities is a great example of what could happens with the other two Marriott hotels beside the luxurious JW Marriott convention hotel.
I understand that design costs more and all that -but you're not building a dinky hotel amongst a bunch of other hotels like at keystone at the crossing.
You're building a huge hotel to compliment our state's only urban state park. It needs to look like it compliments it, otherwise it'll be an eyesore. If you want to put your commodity in one of the nicer parts of downtown, then make it look nice - otherwise, go save money and build it by the airport.
But yeah, they could have made some facade upgrades. Keep commenting on it and hopefully Marriott listens and makes some changes.
Is that the best you can do Marriott? For a downtown location on the same parcel of another massive Marriott, wouldn't you want to spice it up just a little?
Leave the low budget accomodations to a less desirable location downtown that is not getting $60 million of taxpayer subsidies.
They're all fighting to be seen there. I think they're all fighting to
look the same here. Indianapolis mentality.
http://theurbanophile.blogspot.com/2008/01/hotel-mundane-no-more.html
Here is a link to the site plan for the project along with some renderings.
http://theurbanophile.blogspot.com/2008/01/hotel-mundane-no-more.html
Please do!
There isn't anything about this project that is being done right.
All this design can be found at any interstate exit ramp.
Also why can't this new hotel at least have some shape to it, say maybe a half moon or something that would compliment the curve of the JW?
And It would be cool to curve the hotel that is suppose to reuse the couryard as well and then sort of step them down in height, with the JQ being the tallest and then the middle hotel (Fairfield Inn?) being middle height. And then the shortest as the Courtyard by and SpringHill Suites building.
With all of them curving this would add cohesiveness, and a more distictive design, and also it would be great to have a combined underground parking lot for all 3 hotels and this convention center, and be sure that there is proper access from all three hotels to this convention center and to the skywalk, as if this hotel is not connected to the skywalk directly it will be less desireable, and will not be considered a part of this complex, you can only call it a complex if everything matches and is cohesive in form and function.
Why do you oppose improving the design?
Why do you oppose making something better and more unique?
What is wrong with improving the visual relationship of the 3 hotels that make up this complex to make them more harmonious?
Do you think that if we ask someone to improve a building's design that the city's economy is going to fall apart and that no one will ever build here again?
What is wrong with asking for more-beautiful buildings?
Why do you assume that good design = more $?
What is wrong with asking that those who wish to build in our state's capital city consider the aesthetic impact of their structures a bit more?
Do you want to live in a city known for its excellence or its mediocrity?
Maybe the issue is that we *don't* need a BUDGET hotel downtown. Don't we aspire to be a city where people so want to visit that they are willing to pay a premium to stay overnight? Or willing to spend a small amount of time researching to find a small local bed and breakfast or inn to stay at instead of a taxpayer funded/corporate chain tower?
Let's not go over the top with bashing, however. The developers of this project did two design iterations on the main tower, arriving at something that is pretty good looking. This shows their willingness to listen.
This is a highly prominent site, very visible from WRSP, etc. I think there are ways to greatly improve the design (and the site plan as I noted earlier), without going crazy on price.
Good design does not necessarily mean expensive design.
This hotel render is far from the most offensive piece of architecture downtown. However, there is certainly room for improvement. If you're listening Whiteco and REI, please put the same amount of care into the ancillary structures, the site plan, and the 360 relationship of the complex to the streets as clearly went into the main tower.
When I go to a city I never stay in a chain hotel - I find small independent B&B's or inns for significantly less money than a chain, even a budget chain, and get a far less sanitized, chain-like experience.
Aren't we pushing for a local Naptown identity? Don't we want to support local businesses? Apparently those who disburse our tax dollars aren't/don't.
Of course budget hotels are needed in ANY major downtown. What, are downtown and its attractions only supposed to be convenient and available to the wealthy? Should we banish everyone with less financial means to one of those suburban interstate exit hotels that everyone keeps talking about here?
Developers build things to make money. If someone sees a market for a budget hotel downtown, they will build one and profit handsomely. But if the market is there, then the taxpayer subsidies shouldn't be necessary, right? If the site requires taxpayer funding, then we should be able to comment strongly on how we feel its appearance AND planning benefit our city.
Maybe the building doesn't need to be an icon, but it at least shouldn't look like an EIFS piece of crap. If a decent-looking building can't make a profit at budget room rates AND with taxpayer subsidies, then the proforma needs to be reconsidered.
I wonder if the mayor has seen these renderings. Surely, it was someone higher up than the City planning staff that demanded the redesign of the JW building. Will anyone be concerned about the design of the S/C?
In theory, the planning staff could request design changes as part of the administrative Regional Center review process, but...