Midtown Biergarten is an urban design fail. (Oak Park: appointed, 2014)

[Mr. Ozo]

The city placed a ton of special conditions on how the BierGarten ended up designed.

First they made them clad the containers in stucco. This is not the biggest offense and you could make the argument they look more like real buildings, although I don't think that was the ponit.

No the worse fact is how the design faces inward and then of all things there is a 5 foot setback from the sidewalk complete with little shrubberies.

What was supposed to be a comunity gathering type place has become a fortress, it really looks like a walled compound from the street.

I thought current design is supposed to encourage active uses that great the street and so the city forces an inward facing design right out of the 1962 urban planners guidebook.

What were they thinking?

[Chimérique]

Originally Posted by Mr. Ozo

The city placed a ton of special conditions on how the BierGarten ended up designed.


No the worse fact is how the design faces inward and then of all things there is a 5 foot setback from the sidewalk complete with little shrubberies.

What was supposed to be a comunity gathering type place has become a fortress, it really looks like a walled compound from the street.

I thought current design is supposed to encourage active uses that great the street and so the city forces an inward facing design right out of the 1962 urban planners guidebook.

What were they thinking?

Sort of my first reaction too, but it's BEER, POUR IT AND THEY WILL COME.

[ryuns]

I know the cladding was based on a bunch of arguments with the city, even though everyone agrees it's pretty ridiculous. Anyone who followed the approval and permitting process is probably left pretty disappointed with the future for creative projects in the city.

I wasn't sure how much the city's intervention resulted in the "walled off" concept. I thought early drawings I saw all kind of echoed that, for better or worse. Going back on some original drawings, they all featured a pretty tall fence. They did end up orienting the layout differently, and moved the structures away from the Golden Bear building, which is probably pretty reasonable, given issues like exhaust. It also may have kept things quieter--not all the neighbors were real happy about the idea. )

[wburg]

Yeah, it was always supposed to be an inward-facing courtyard, and as it is, they have a lower fence in front with seating that is a lot more visible to the sidewalk and the neighborhood. The main push to clad the containers came from nearby business owners--the neighborhood actually supported the design as presented. One nearby business owner was nearly apoplectic about the idea of shipping containers as architecture, going on about how junky and gross they looked when compared to fancy nice places like Randy Paragary's restaurants down the street. A couple neighbors were concerned about noise and use, but not the architecture. And I'm not sure what the setbacks/shrubberies are about either--it seems like a commercial street in Midtown is just the place for zero lot lines rather than setbacks.

So part of it is existing business owners not liking competition in their neighborhood, and part of it is a tendency of the city planning department to micromanage development if they think that anyone might possibly be offended by it.

In terms of "urban design fails," we'll see how business goes. If it is popular and business does well, that's a win in my book.

[Mr. Ozo]

I think the setback is the most egregious thing to me, which you can see is not in the original design. People already are "shortcutting" and trappling the scrubs. It's just wasted urban space.

I had a beer there last evening. Yes, it will be packed because it's beer.

[Majin]

Did the planning commission force the setback/shurbs or was there some kind of community outcry for this? I can't believe in 2014 the planning commission is still forcing setbacks.

Setbacks and any ground level parking should be illegal within the grid.

[ryuns]

I agree that setbacks are ridiculous for a place like this. But long-term business will depend on more than "it's beer", since there sure are a lot of places to grab good beers these days (and more all the time--Blackbird's reiteration, no surprise, is adding a bunch of taps). It's a pretty cool and original concept (and great location), even if the final product didn't meet everyone's expectation.

[wburg]

This didn't go to Planning/Design Commission. There were two Design Director hearings, which is the level below a Commission level hearing, but nobody appealed the Design Director's decision to escalate it to that level. The setback was basically a mechanistic decision: according to X city planning code, in Y zone a setback of Z feet is indicated. The fact that Golden Bear's patio extends all the way to the sidewalk, and Rick's Dessert Diner's front wall goes all the way to the sidewalk, was not taken into account because it's outlined in the code. A lot of zoning code issues changed this past October with adoption of a new zoning ordinance, but this went through planning review and started construction before that code was implemented. It did, however, get started after the new parking ordinances which don't require any parking on lots of 6400 square feet or smaller in "traditional neighborhoods", which is the vast majority of lots in the central city and surrounding streetcar neighborhoods. And no, the setback and shrubberies weren't a result of community outcry. Only the local businesses were really upset about the design.

Agreed that just having beer won't guarantee their viability. In the long run they also have to provide good food and good service, and appeal to the neighborhood as well as to visitors. I only had a pretzel there, but liked it enough that I plan on going back to try some more. Service, we'll see how things work out once the rush dies down. And appeal to the neighborhood already seems to work--that's why the neighborhood supported them, even if nearby businesses did not.

[Majin]

Does anybody have a link to the setback/parking requirements for new construction in the grid and surrounding neighborhoods? East Sac, Oak Park, Land Park, etc.

In my opinion, surface parking should be completely illegal in all of those surrounding neighborhoods.

[wburg]

Here's a link to the new planning and development code:

Planning and Development Code

The property is zoned C2. Under the new zoning code, the required setback is zero.

Here are the new parking requirements:

Zoning Code Parking Update

They don't make parking illegal, but they largely eliminate parking minimums in the central city and surrounding "traditional" neighborhoods. Now, the owners of the property can still choose to include parking if they wish to, but they aren't dictated to by the city regarding how many parking spaces they must have. In most cases residential properties still require some parking, but it's a smaller amount--and in the central business district (roughly H-N Street west of 15th) parking minimums are effectively zero. The problem there becomes banks--banks don't like lending money to developers to build buildings that don't include parking.

There is a second proposed container-architecture "beer garden" that just got submitted, one that uses an existing house on N Street as the restaurant, with nine shipping containers in the backyard forming an outdoor patio and serving area, including a bocce court. We'll see how that one turns out. One twist on this plan: the owner and his family will be living in the second floor of the house!