coming soon: marriott san quentin

(photo from brandon farley's photobucket account, posted on skyscraperpage.com forums)

that's what the head of ccdc is saying about the proposed new marriott ballpark village hotel, adjacent to petco park. from the looks of it, it sure does look like the "fortress" that fred maas describes it as. the towers are generic, bland slabs with no interesting architectural features whatsoever, especially lacking at the top. the hotel walls would shoot nearly 200 feet straight up from the street, which seems to contradict one of the ballpark village's master plan points: "pedestrian plazas and design that allows movement of people through large blocks". and the fact that elevators would take folks up to a fifth-floor check-in desk, surrounded by marriott retail and dining, only reinforces the complete disregard for integrating with the neighborhood (only two ground-floor retail occupants will be in the hotel). architect gwayne pugh sums it up much better than i can at the end of that linked document.



if the rendering to the right is any indication, the architects, johnson fain, can do better than the proposed marriott. this is the columbia square project slated for sunset blvd. in hollywood, and at least shows some attention to distinguishing architectural features.

marriott has to be aware of the ballpark village master plan, so what kind of chutzpah does it take to put forward design like this? i suppose they figure with the kind of tax revenue they'll be providing the city, they can do whatever they want. fortunately there are enough people raising questions about this project that changes should happen. the worst scenario would be one where the hotel budges an inch or so on major design points until they wear down their opponents with twenty sets of renderings. for now, thanks marriott, but we already have a prison downtown.