HomeMy WebLinkAbout20240720 30-30 1/2 Caroline Building Expansion Public Comment (60)Outlook
Online Form Submittal: Land Use Board Agenda Public Comment
From noreply@civicplus.com <noreply@civicplus.com>
Date Tue 4/29/2025 4:51 PM
To Mark Graham <Mark.Graham@saratoga-springs.org>; beige.berryman@saratoga-springs.org
<beige.berryman@saratoga-springs.org>
Land Use Board Agenda Public Comment
SUBMIT COMMENTS REGARDING CITY PROJECTS
Thank you for submitting your comments. Your feedback will be forwarded to the
City's Planning Department and Land Use Board members. NOTE: Comments
submitted later than 12:00 noon on the day before the Land Use Board meeting
may not be reviewed prior to their meeting. All comments will be added to the
project file in the Planning Department.
Land Use Board Design Review Board
Name Michael Grant
Email Address sendittogrant@gmail.com
Business Name Field not completed.
Address 401 Wildwood Road
City Stamford
State CT
Zip Code 06903
Phone Number 917-817-0049
Project Name 30-30 ½ Building Expansion
Project Number 20240720
Project Address Caroline Street
Comments Saratoga has endured a visual micro-erosion with its onslaught
of loft-esque, hyper-scaled and insensitive architecture that
employs cheap-looking materials and dulls the urban texture.
I'm a real estate photographer with university training in
Architecture. These designers are proposing solutions based
on economics alone, maximizing profits on a narrow footprint
with a narrower vision. Their visual vocabulary of unpoetic
4/30/25, 8:42 AM Mail - Mark Graham - Outlook
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materials is utterly blind to the context -- there must be a
spreadsheet mandating costs per square foot and projected
ROIs prohibiting the appropriate expression of a building on
this particular site.
Perhaps out by the post office or the railroad station one can
manifest an argument for an antiseptic, utilitarian approach, but
in the heart of a historic town that boasts exemplary Greek
Revivals, Georgians, Victorians, Colonials, and more, this is
simply an arrogant proposal, where arrogance is ignorance
matured.
We are the stewards of the future and the future shouldn't be
big black boxes that swallow the jewels within. The jewels
should be featured and complimented. I'm not suggesting they
be devoutly replicated, but they should at least be considered
and integrated. In these renderings, the Sperry's Building has
been reduced to the hole in a grotesque condo-donut. Look
again. You can't not see it!
Architecture is about function and purpose, but also PLACE.
Build this behemoth in a field in Clifton Park or Wilton (if it must
be built), but not as the obese frame around the constructed
beauty of Caroline Street.
Despite the glass, what is being proposed is a new form of
Brutalism that swallows the block with its flat facades and
purposeful lack of character. This isn't a major city with room to
experiment, this is intimate, delicate, vibrant Saratoga Springs.
This is a remarkable and enviable time-capsule and it's being
erased with each disastrous approval.
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4/30/25, 8:42 AM Mail - Mark Graham - Outlook
https://outlook.office365.com/mail/inbox/id/AAQkAGIxYTcxODdiLTE4ZmUtNDdlMy05MTNlLTA4ZjY5NTFhMDAzMQAQAFV3jAMnCCVAjjBXydk99%2B…2/2