It was one of the most dispiriting experiences I’ve had since I moved to the U.P. more than six years ago.
The Marquette City Board of Zoning Appeals Thursday evening overruled an earlier Planning Commission decision, and voted to approve the construction of a butt-ugly six-story building next to the graceful Citadel building on Ridge Street.
The developers, who should be ashamed of themselves, will have to shoehorn the monstrosity next to the Citadel because the plot of land they’ll occupy together is tiny. The incongruity of the two buildings will be a sight to behold, an embarrassment for a town that has prided itself on its physical and architectural charm.
The architect, John Larson, should be ashamed. The building is utterly without architectural merit. It is a six story high box.
And above all, the Board of Zoning Appeals should be ashamed. Knowing all the facts and seeing the architect’s rendition of the monstrosity, they voted 6-1 to overturn the Planning Commission’s decision and give a thumbs-up to the aesthetically challenged developers and architect.
The six Board members essentially said, “What can we do? The proposed building is the appropriate size for that area, which is at the border of a residential neighborhood and downtown, and it’ll be for an appropriate use–greater housing density—so therefore it’s fine. Its boxiness and ugliness and its utter incongruity with its next door neighbor is irrelevant.”
Really?
Joe Constance, the lone dissenter on the Board, then raised this question: What would happen if someone proposed constructing a pink, fluorescent building on that same site with the appropriate height and the appropriate use? Would that be okay, as well?
The six aesthetes glanced at each other and were silent. They had no answer because to apply their logic, they would have to approve the pink building or any building that was proposed with the appropriate size and use.
All they had to do was walk around the neighborhood and open their eyes. The monstrosity will not fit, either with the Citadel or the surrounding neighborhood. Its physical appearance will be appalling.
As City Commissioner Fred Stonehouse futilely pointed out at the meeting, if this six story box goes up, we’ll have to live with it for the next several decades. It’ll be a blight on Marquette, it’ll chip away at the architectural beauty that has made so many of us proud.
But the developers will have had their victory. One of them, in making his case before the Board, claimed that the owner of the Citadel had been trying to sell the property for $500,000, but never had any takers. So what were they to do?
Wrong. The owner was asking for much more. The Landmark Inn, in fact, would have paid $500,000 for the Citadel, and made it an integral and charming part of the Landmark property, but the owner wouldn’t budge on the price.
So now we are left with the monstrosity on Ridge Street….and a court battle that looms ahead.