New York Daily News - Boroughs - Drive-thru plan gets driven out

I recently ran a post on a bank branch planned for the Park Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn and a followup correction  based on information I recieved from one of the people involved in the issue.  Both posts involved a branch which was expected to be built to a suburban cookie cutter model not appropriate to Brooklyn. 

It seems there is good news.  Due to the uproar in the community Commerce Bank has agreed to build a branch more in keeping with the urban character of the neighborhood.

Here is the the New York Daily News article describing the outcome, posted by Jym in the comments section here.

Here is the link sent by Mike Flynn to an article in Curbed.

Here is a link to Aaron Naparstek's blog summarizing the outcome.

Credit should be given to both  Aaron Naparstek and the people working with him from the neighborhood for raising this issue, and the Commerce Bank for showing flexibility and good faith in the face of neighborhood opposition.

Comments

[Anthony]

Well thankfully people are waking up to the fact that parking does not have to be in front of the store anymore. I wished they had done that with the strip development next to Barnes & Noble in Buckhead off of Peachtree and West Paces.

[aaron]

Yeah, these suburban strip-mallers think that it's more appealing to have the parking in front because it is inviting to motorists driving by. This is a particuarly odious form of development on a healthy, thriving, urban pedestrian shopping street like Park Slope's 5th Ave. in Brooklyn.

[darin]

That's something I appreciate about the Edgewood Target on Moreland - from the street you're immediately looking at store fronts and not an ocean of parking lot. That at least gives the impression of pedestrain traffic being the main draw, whether that's the intention or not.

[Matt Lyons]

Reading through the press release on Curbed I must admit I found myself perplexed by some of the statements.

"Commerce Bank’s focus on serving the local community has resulted in a unique new bank building"

Unique? How so? It fronts the street and puts the parking to the rear, meeting only the most basic requirements of urban design. The architectural style, which could best be described as late 20th Century corporate banal, as well as the massing are nothing special.

"With a grand entrance at the corner of Fifth Avenue and First Street and tall windows along the sidewalk, the new design has a welcoming feel to it and is in many ways a throwback to bank buildings of old".

First off its not even two stories, which is typically the minimum requirement for massing in order to reinforce the feeling of an outdoor room.

Second why does a "grand entrance" have to be portrayed in a nostalgic light?

Yes Commerce Bank didn't have to do this, but I find all of this patting on the back to be a little too self congratulatory. Good urban design should be the standard, not some marketing gimmick that lets corporations claim to be special for not doing something that they should've never done in the first place.

What we should be asking is why did banks ever abandon their role in creating civic structures to begin with? And why are our expectations so low when it comes to the everyday buildings that are the backbone of a healthy urban environment?

In Europe a building proposal such as this in a traditional urban area would've been torn to shreds.

That local zoning codes would've allowed the original monstrosity is a prime example of the flaws of the "zoning is planning" philosophy.

-Matt Lyons