Exxon Condo Designs Released

GM reported yesterday that Eastbanc was going back to the OGB to renew their application to replace the Key Bridge Exxon with a condo building. Well the folks over at Urban Turf did GM one better and got some illustrations of the proposal.

Here’s another:

GM’s immediate response to these designs is mostly surprise. It’s an awfully dark and stark design. And it’s a dramatic departure from the earlier disavowed plans:

But the more GM thought about it, the more sense this design makes. It’s basically neutral. And why that’s important for this location is that on one side it’s got the beautiful and Beaux Arts car barn, and it’s got the fussy neo-neo-classical Arthur Cotton Moore building on the left. It would be just about impossible for a building to “go” with either one of those buildings without looking horrible next to the other. A black box makes the building visually sink back into the hill. And hey, maybe that’s why Eastbanc is calling the project “Georgetown Hillside” now.

Here’s GM’s attempt to show how this design will fit with its neighbors:

This is hardly a perfect rendering, but it gives you the idea of the challenge the designers have. We’ll see whether the architects at the Old Georgetown Board agree.