Design unveiled for new downtown skyscraper

More on Hines' proposed 47-story downtown skyscraper: The Chronicle has some details about the building and its design, and it looks like it really could be something different for the CBD. Plans call for the 630-foot building to be clad in glass, with the west facade featuring projecting vertical glass fins to shade offices from afternoon sunlight. Near the top of the building, on its east side, will be a notched opening that'll shelter a "sky garden." Down below, the roof of the building's parking garage will also be landscaped — a nice change from the usual sea of concrete. "We want to make sure this building serves as a benchmark of what urban architecture should be," Jon Pickard of architecture firm Pickard Chilton told the Chronicle. And there's also this:

Hines said the building will be pre-certified by the U.S. Green Building Council with a silver rating through the group's Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design — Core and Shell program. The council awards points to buildings with features such as air-cleaning systems, individual temperature controls, recycled building materials and purified water systems.

Sounds good, right? The only unfortunate thing so far is the building's name: MainPlace, which manages to be both drab and to embrace that annoying habit of running two words together. And yet it's still better than Discovery Green.

According to the Chon, Hines will begin preparing MainPlace's site — on the block bounded by Main, Rusk, Fannin and Walker — for construction this week, with the building set for completion in late 2010. That means we won't have much more time with the historic buildings on the MainPlace site, which include the Montagu Hotel, the Beatty-West Building and the Bond Clothes store — all of which have great potential but are down-at-heel these days, prompting Hines to call the 800 block of Main Street "one of the most blighted blocks in downtown." Not for much longer, we suppose.

- Learn more about the history and architecture of the 800 block of Main Street and the surrounding area on GHPA's Historic Rusk Avenue walking tour Sunday, Sept. 9.