The German investment fund Bayerische Versorgungskammer (BVK) has just closed on the Herzog & de Meuron-designed mixed-use parking garage / event space at 1111 Lincoln in Miami Beach. 

They paid USD$283 million or $1,932 per square foot. It’s one of the biggest deals ever on Lincoln Road.

The complex includes 94,488 square feet of office, 51,839 square feet of retail, and a 300 stall parking garage / event space (people get married in this garage). The sale also includes retail space at 1664-1664 Lenox Avenue, but excludes two new residential units according to The Real Deal. I’m assuming it is these two.

The seller was developer Robert Wennett, who bought the site – existing office building + surface parking lot – in 2005 for $23.5 million. He then spent $65 million on the widely celebrated HdM garage and built himself a penthouse residence on top if it.

I am very curious to know the cap rate. But it would also be interesting to try and figure out what sort of premium could attributed to the fact that this is a pretty famous complex designed by HdM.

The Wall Street Journal once wrote that several hundred people walk into this parking garage every single day just to look around. I have been one of those humans on many many occasions. See above photo.

For more photos of 1111 Lincoln, click here.

I’m a big fan of Canadian developer Ian Gillespie and his firm Westbank. They are the developers behind projects like the Shangri-La Vancouver, the Shangri-La Toronto, the mixed-use Woodward’s complex, and the upcoming Vancouver House (shown above) designed by Danish architect Bjarke Ingels (who just so happens to be one of my favorite architects). I would easily count them as one of the preeminent city builders in the country today.

In support of their commitment to city building (and as a way to offer the public a peek of Vancouver House), they recently staged an exhibition called Gesamtkunstwerk. I think this is great on so many levels. Not only was it probably a great sales tool, but it’s also introducing the public to a largely obscure and academic term, and showing off a deep commitment to design. Unless you studied art, architecture, or something like the philosophy of aesthetics, you probably haven’t come across this term before.

Gesamtkunstwerk is a German word, which literally translates into a “total work of art.” It was introduced in the 19th century by an opera composer by the name of Richard Wagner, who felt that opera represented a total, or complete work of art. Later, the term was picked up by architects. Some interpreted it to mean that architects should be responsible for everything from the building itself to the furniture and everything else that goes inside of it. Everything was art.

Westbank now wants to introduce the idea of gesamtkunstwerk into the real estate development business. They want to use it as a guiding philosophy for all of their projects. And what that means is that the building itself and its relationship to the greater city should be thought of as a “total work of art.” They seem to be reintroducing the term with an inherent city building tinge–one that I don’t think was ever there before. 

What a great philosophy.

Image: Westbank

One of the places I had to visit during my trip to Detroit last weekend was Lafayette Park. Designed by famed German-American architect Mies van der Rohe, it’s the largest collection of his buildings and one of the most successful examples of urban renewal in America.

Still today it remains one of the most economically and racially diverse neighbourhoods in the city and a bastion of stability within Detroit’s eroding urban fabric. But from a planning standpoint, it shares many of the same characteristics as other tower-in-a-park renewal plans. 

It was built at a lower density than the neighbourhood it replaced (the unfortunately named Black Bottom slum) and it was far more insular in terms of its relationship to the greater city. From cul-de-sacs to expansive green space areas, it’s an island in the middle of Detroit.

This recipe has created many spectacular urban failures all across the world. So why not in Detroit? One would think that Detroit of all places would suffer the same fate.

I have 3 hypotheses.

First, the fact that it’s a Mies community matters.  I’m sure it attracted and continues to attract residents simply because of who designed it. The entire neighbourhood is on the National Register of Historic Places.

Second, the community doesn’t have the same monoculture that many other master planned communities had. From the beginning, the intent was to develop a self sustaining mixed-income neighbourhood with shops, restaurants, schools and so on.

Third, I think the fact that the neighbourhood was more insular actually helped it. As the rest of the city’s fabric crumbled, Lafayette Park remained this kind of curated semi-urban space in the core of the city.

These are just some of my initial thoughts.

There has, of course, been a lot of rigorous academic thought on this topic by the likes of Charles Waldheim, the late Detlef Mertins, and others.