News
TOP 100: ARROWSTREET, DOWN THE EAST COAST
April 13, 2010
| Arrowstreet long has been a design firm to call for giving urban sites a new life. Founded by Harvard and MIT architects in ?64, it helped reinvent industrial East Cambridge with CambridgeSide Galleria, and Central Square with University Park. In DC, it designed Friendship Heights? Wisconsin Place, soon to welcome Whole Foods. | |
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| George Tremblay, Michael Wang, and Kevin Nice are designing the master plan for the approximately $1B, 2.8M SF Steelpointe Harbor, a transit-oriented project that seeks to redefine the Bridgeport, CT, waterfront. The plan calls for a 55-acre Long Island Sound neighborhood of walkways with residences, a major retail center, and offices where there is now a fishing pier and yacht club. A new marina filled with restaurants, entertainment, and a yacht club will bring 24/7 life to the site being developed by Miami-based RCI in cooperation with the City of Bridgeport. George says it's challenging to ?reconnect an industrial area back to the heart of the city and figure out how to create a tipping point in this economy.? | |
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| We snapped its Brad Edgerly and Scott Pollack, who helped create the 1.1M SF Wisconsin Place for New England Development. Eight years in the making, Brad said Chevy Chase, MD (on the DC/MD border), had ?high hopes for a landmark project? on an 8-acre site, including a ?town center type identity.? Brad and Scott assisted in planning a transit-oriented complex: 11-story office (co-developed with Boston Properties), 432 housing units (co-developed with Archstone Smith), parking, retail and open space. Wisconsin Place?s last segment of retail, office, and parking will open in a few weeks. | |
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| Mike Conlan and Jim Batchelor (who's been with the firm since ?74) designed Two Financial Center, one of few new office buildings in the Financial District. (Its first two tenants,including anchor KPMG, will move in next month.) Ten years ago, Jim started to design the 225k SF building across from South Station. But with a legal challenge and new developer (a JV of ASB Capital Management and Lincoln Property), in ?06 Jim and Mike went back to the drawing board. With patience, Jim says they created a good fit between a major transit node and the Leather District. ?The granite, steel base and woven window pattern reinforces the historic neighborhood.? |
