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New Center at Western Conn. State
Designs are in development for a new $65 million performing arts center that will rise on the West Side campus of Western Connecticut State University in Danbury.
The 169,000-sq.-ft. center, under design by Amenta/Emma Architects of Hartford, Conn., and Holzman Moss Architecture of New York, will include four concert spaces, including an 800-seat concert hall, a 500-seat proscenium theater, a 200-seat studio theater, and a 200-seat recital hall. It would also have rehearsal and production spaces, music and instructional classrooms, faculty offices, an art gallery, and fine art studios.
Hill International, a construction consulting firm based in Marlton, N.J., is serving as project manager during the pre-construction, design, and construction stages.
Construction on the center is slated to begin in fall 2007.
Brazil Invites N.Y. Architects
Two New York City designers are the only architects who will represent the United States at the sixth São Paolo biennial of architecture and design. The festival is part of the larger 26th annual Art Biennial, the second-oldest after Venice's event.
The organizers of the event, "Living in the City - Architecture, Reality, Utopia," invited New York-based Richard Meier and Rafael Viñoly. The event, which began last month, runs through Dec. 11.
The exhibit will showcase Meier's 16-story glass residential tower at 165 Charles St., completed this spring in Manhattan's West Village next to the architect's two older glass and steel residential towers on Perry and West streets.
The exhibit will also present the David L. Lawrence Convention Center in Pittsburgh, a design by Viñoly, the Uruguayan architect now based in New York. He designed the recently completed New Bronx Criminal Court, as well as Jazz at Lincoln Center in Manhattan and the Brooklyn Children's Museum.
Plans Progress for Fresh Kills
New York City will take its first step to convert the former Fresh Kills landfill on Staten Island into a 2,200-acre park with the construction of Owl Hollow Fields Park. Work is expected to start next spring.
The design by the Department of City Planning for the $6 million park calls for 10 acres of recreation space, four soccer fields, and various fitness and nature trails. The park will also feature a new open drainage system, designed in coordination with the Department of Sanitation, that will act as a bio-filter for rainwater.
Funds for Owl Hollow will primarily come from Mayor Michael Bloomberg's executive budget, along with $450,000 in federal funds and $550,000 in funds appropriated separately by the New York City Council. Owl Hollow is the first step in an effort to convert the former dump into a $100 million park that will be two and a half times larger than Manhattan's Central Park.
Access to the park will open over a period of 30 years, in part due to environmental requirements for cleaning up the landfill. The park will eventually include both active recreation space and hundreds of acres of open water, wetlands, meadows, and woodlands.
Brownfields Remediation in Brocton
Upstate New York's Chautauqua County and its Village of Brocton are remediating a 2.4-acre brownfield site in the municipality for environmental cleanup and eventual private development.
The project will entail rehabilitating a former Welch Foods wine cellar and grape juice processing facility, which has been abandoned for more than 15 years. Brocton is on the shores of Lake Erie about 50 mi. southwest of Buffalo.
The county recently hired TVGA Consultants, an engineering firm based in Elma, N.Y., which is helping to secure $783,000 in state funds from the New York State Environmental Restoration Program for the project. The first phase involved securing the funds and remedial design for the clean up and demolition work.
TVGA will also oversee the second phase of remediation. Expected to be complete by the end of the year, the work entails excavation and disposal of contaminated fill material and soil, asbestos containment, and demolition of existing facilities.
Over the summer, the county began soliciting letters of interest for private redevelopment of the Welch site from local companies. The project aims to revitalize Brocton's business district.
Vote on Times Square Designs
For the second year in a row, the Times Square Alliance has invited the public to cast votes in its Design Times Square program. The program recognizes both new and old designs in Times Square in order to promote good practices in new projects.
A five-person jury of design professionals, including New York-based architects Fred Schwartz and Ken Smith, recently picked 26 finalists in architecture, interiors, commercial signs, and public art.
Among the finalists in the architecture category are the recently renovated Hudson Theatre, the Reuters Building at 3 Times Square, and the Ernst and Young offices at 5 Times Square.
Finalists in the interiors category included the Bank of America at 1515 Broadway, the Whisky at 1567 Broadway, and the Al Hirschfeld Theatre at 302 West 45th St.
The alliance is offering presentations and walking tours to provide more information about the nominated sites. It is accepting votes until New Year's Eve.
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