Short News Stories No. 6

RFP's Sought in Syracuse
Request for Proposals to develop the Inner Harbor on the Syracus, N.Y., lakefront are due March 31,2010. Issued by the Syracus Lakefront Development Corp., the specifications can be found at www.syracus.ny.us/Lakefront_RFP.aspx. Or call Joseph LaGuardia at 315/448-2244. E-mail: jlaguardia@thesyracuselakefront.com

Blurbber Misses
A blurbber for the book Waterfronts in Post-Industrial Cities, edited by Richard Marshall, misses the mark by a mile. They write: "Most books on waterfronts deal with a relatively narrow collection of cities and projects; one might describe them as the 'top ten' list of waterfront revitalisation projects." As authors of two of the relative handful of comprehensive waterfront titles, we can say that the blurbber is unfamiliar with the literature or is willing to distort in order to promote a book. From one of our books, The New Waterfront: A Worldwide Urban Success Story (London, Thames and Hudson Ltd., 1996, 224 pages, illustrated) we list some of the case examples included to see if you think they are "top ten": Pacifico Yokohama, Japan; Aker Brygge, Oslo, Norway; Asia and Pacific Trade Center, Osaka, Japan; Quayside, Newcastle, UK; Victoria and Alfred Waterfront, Cape Town, South Africa -- and that's just chapter one. Case rested. Google waterfronts picked up this mischievous blurb recently even though the book being promoted is dated 2001. Included in it are Boston, Sydney and Vancouver, like nobody's heard of them?

UW 27 Opening Speaker Recognized
Alex MacLean, the opening plenary speaker at the Waterfront Center's 2009 conference in Seattle, has been recognized for his most recent book, OVER: The American Landscape at the Tipping Point. The work received the CORINE International Book Award, likened to what the Oscars are for film. The awards were subject of a major TV gala last November in Munich, Germany. The awards are made under the patronage of the Bavarian Minister-President. Said the committee in making the award to MacLean: "Never before has a photographer made us shudder with such aesthetically beautiful pictures."
MacLean can be reached at Landslides Aerial Photography, 23 Conant Road, Lincoln, Mass. 01773.

Coney Island Comeback
The City of New York has finally wrested seven acres at the heart of the bedraggled resort of Coney Island from a developer and plans a year 'round destination. Instead of the planned Las Vegas-style hotel and condominiums, there are to be a mix of rides, games and attractions to join an existing ballpark and Cyclone ride. The city will seek competing proposals from operators. It was reported to have paid $95.6 million for the property, which runs along Coney Island's famed boardwalk. While the core will be strictly for amusements, the city has zoned adjoining territory for housing, allowing up to 4,500 apartments on one site alone.
The New York Times, Nov. 12, 2009.

Olympic Impact
The Winter Olympics will not leave much of physical residue on host Vancouver, B.C. by using existing facilities -- with one notable exception. A major addition to the convention center was opened last spring, filling in a leftover piece of central waterfront with an expansion containing 338,000 square feet. The community pushed for public access to the site, resulting in throughways, a park and streetfront retail that connect with the city's perimeter walkway system. The outstanding feature is Canada's largest green roof, covering six acres. The design was by LMN Architects of Seattle with the Canadian firms of Musson Cattell Mackey Partnership and DA Architects and Planners. The latter two firms did the original convention center built for the 1986 World's Fair, with the Zeidler Roberts Partnership. It contains 133,000 square feet under a distinctive tensile roof structure.
Architectural Record, July 2009.

Urban Waterfronts 28 Taking Shape

The Waterfront Center's annual conference will be held Nov. 4 to 6, 2010, at the Marriott Baltimore Waterfront Hotel, located directly on Baltimore's storied harbor, amid the burgeoning Inner Harbor East Neighborhood created in the last ten years or so. It inspired this year's conference theme: The City Resurgent. Inner Harbor East is a humming mixed-use neighborhood with living spaces, officers, hotels, markets and shops, restaurants and cultural features. The harbor is never far from view. The program topics are being considered now, with a deadline of Jan. 15 for submitting suggestions. After the 12 session topics have been decided, candidate presenters will be sought. Preceding the conference that runs all day Friday Nov. 5 and half Saturday, Nov. 6, is an all-day workshop featuring the Baltimore waterfront in its entirety.

A local committee has already met once to plan the itinerary and is having another session this month. Serving on the local committee are David Benn, principal, Cho Benn Holback; David Carroll, director of sustainability, Baltimore County; Laurie Schwartz, principal, LS Consulting; Keith Weaver, head, EDSA Baltimore office; and Steve Ziger, principal, Ziger/Snead Architects.

To get a taste of what the Baltimore workshop might be like, visit the Center's website: www.waterfrontcenter.org and click on the conference button. Included here are photos from a comprehensive boat tour of Seattle's waterfront from last year's meeting. The first hotel registrations were made in January!

Awards Deadline June 30
Entries to the Center's annual Excellence on the Waterfront awards program must be postmarked by June 30,2010. The jury, headed by Fran Hegeler, development director, will convene in July in Cape May, N.J., for the better part of two days to select Honor Awards for built projects, comprehensive plans, and grassroots citizen efforts. Student work may be considered in a separate process but if not, will be screened by the regular jury. A new category in projects added last year is Public Works. Work is welcomed from the whole range of waterfront undertakings, with parks and the public realm usually the largest entry category. Preservation and the working waterfront, commercial and mixed-used projects, housing (provided there is public access) and artistic and cultural work are among the other categories. Entry forms for this year will soon be available on the Center's website.