I walk by this site everyday and it looked like they were originally planning to save most of the original walls but it is obvious they were not able to.

Has the project become more extensive as a result of their dealing with a delapitated building that was worse than they realized or was the extent of rennovation – reconstruction, really – what they originally accessed?

I’m very curious and, of course, wish them the utmost best throughout all of this.

It seems like it would have been cheaper, quicker, and easier to just tear the whole building down and start from scratch. That’s my 2 cents.

no, I think they’re going to call it “the people’s graffiti canvas” – actually the developer said something about there being an anti-graffiti coating on the wall, but we’re in a city where folks have used things like glass-etching compounds to write tags, so who knows.

I’m going to say it if no one else will admit it: those black blocks of whatever? Hideous.

I’ve always thought the building next door (brick red in the top photo) looks like a pop-up but nicely done — to create a multi-unit building? The front doesn’t pop up but the entire 3rd floor is now level at the roofline and you can see a (thankfully slight) difference in materials. They’ve even re-created the difference in the artist’s drawing.
Anyway, this project sounds exciting and I can’t worry too much about the black wall.