Yes it is horrible inside. I sometimes scoff at the desires here for everything to be the best of the best, a city designed only for the upscale with the time to be seen lounging on patios, the call always for iconic design and fancy materials, marble marble everywhere. So I thought this building would be okay, it was introducing a couple of stores to the street and providing places for more people to live downtown, bringing life to the intersection, replacing what had been a parking lot. I'm not as enthralled as some by the race to touch the sky, but if the planning priorities and economics of our city call for taller and taller buildings, so be it. But last night I walked into BB&B and was immediately surprised that with all those windows lining the space there were no windows to see out - all the display and product has been pushed up against. I guess stores are like that, usually warehouses where you can't see outside, but it had never struck me as so harsh before. Like an Ikea there only seemed to be one route through, a maze taking you from the entrance to the cashiers back near where you began, behind every turn an employee lurking to thank you for coming. And that disgusting smell in there, peeewww.
And then that rabbit warren downstairs, every tiny tiny space a wall of glass, a hastily constructed slab of drywall, some black mesh wire ceiling, and an electrical box. What makes it really depressing are the notices of space for rent left taped to glass, most of them in the handwritten scrawl of a plea for rescue. Just opened and it already feels desperate.
