Borrowing, Part 2

Borrowing, Part 2

“I started out trying to create buildings that would sparkle like isolated jewels. Now I want to connect, to form a new kind of landscape, to flow together with contemporary cities and the lives of their people.”

Zaha Hadid

As mentioned in part one of this series, to borrow means to take and use something that belongs to someone else for a period of time and then return it. It is in the returning, especially when it involves long-term real estate deals, is where this quid quo pro becomes more difficult, especially for the entity doing the borrowing. This is especially the case when considering the use of real property and the entanglements of ownership and liability, only to name a few. The reality of sharing amenities with interests that lay outside the sphere of the project, are to be assess on a case-by-case basis. It is not, after all, a purloined acquisition, but borrowed.

When sharing public amenities, such as park space, roads, data and utility systems, the concept of borrowing is more understandable and plausible to entertain then considering borrowing within the private investment sphere. Nonetheless, opportunities within both private and public development abound.

In the case of Springer Sky Link, a new pedestrian bridge linking a city owned parking garage to a new urban plaza, developer and architect Richard Yates, AIA, lays bare the concept of borrowing to great aplomb. In this unique use of the borrowing concept, he adroitly leverages city infrastructure (an existing parking garage) with a new pedestrian bridge spanning an active rail way (the rail road tracks divide the city of Albuquerque), while revitalizing a neighborhood awash with surface parking lots with a new plaza, which was once a parking lot. The plaza is also a planned nodal connection with, what promises to be a city wide Rail Trail, serving multi-modal transportation and linking the city’s famous rail yards with its neighborhoods.

It is no coincidence, this project’s intention and the city’s found purpose to develop networks of multi-modal trails, see the value of borrowed uses and dependencies, as both stakeholders find value in each other’s purpose. And although each has its own program for use and material specifications and physical requirements, borrowing in this example, presents a confluence of purpose and proves issues of ownership and use can, and must be overcome, for the greater good of the public realm.