SUIT CALLS FOR HANDICAPPED ELEVATORS AT NYC TRAIN STATIONS
Americans with Disabilities Act-accessible elevators are among measures called for in a lawsuit filed by more than two dozen neighborhood associations and two disability-rights groups over a plan to shut down one of the busiest train routes in New York City (NYC) by April 2019, Curbed New York reports. At issue is shutdown of the L Train, with routes from Williamsburg to the west side of Manhattan, to repair the train’s tunnel under the East River. Naming the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, New York City Transit, New York Department of Transportation and Federal Transportation Administration, the suit also alleges the government failed to conduct an environmental impact study and seeks to withhold government funding. The L Train has approximately 400,000 daily riders.
REMARKABLE SOM DESIGN FOR MIXED-USE TOWER IN CHINA
"Programmatic, structural and environmental criteria" drove the striking design by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) for the Hangzhou Wangchao Center, a 288-m-tall, 54-story mixed-use tower set to be complete in 2021 in the heart of Hangzhou, China, host of the Asian Games in 2022, designboom reports. SOM observes the structure, housing office, hotel and retail space within its 125,000 m2 is adjacent to one of the city's new subway stations and signifies its future as a new, global destination. Its distinctive, rippling silhouette is the result of a structure that "minimizes wind loads with eight mega columns that slope outward to create large, flexible floorplates."
DEVELOPER STILL PURSUING MIAMI SKYSCRAPER PLANS
Five years after announcing a plan to build an 80-story mixed-use tower as part of the Brickell CityCentre development in Miami’s financial district, Swire Properties has again filed the plan with the Federal Aviation Administration, The Next Miami reports. The plan, filed on March 29, is for a 1,040-ft.-tall tower at 700 Brickell Avenue, identical to the previous one approved in June 2015 and granted an extension in late 2016. Since the approval expires in June 2018, the new filing indicates Swire still plans to build the tower, which will be one of the tallest in Florida.
