Aerial view of Bell Laboratory Holmdel, New Jersey en.wikipedia.org |
Hello Everyone:
Today we move from post-Hurricane Sandy New York City to Holmdel, New Jersey and the proposed redevelopment of the former Bell Laboratories site. Bell Labs functioned for nearly forty-four years as the research and development facility for Bell Systems. The campus was one of the final projects designed by Eero Saarinen between 1959 and 1961. Bell labs were responsible for developing the technology that helped usher in the digital age. The 472-acre (1.91 sq. km.) site has been closed since 2007. Now, may get a new lease on life. In August 2013, Somerset Development bought the mirrored glass building and the surrounding property from its former owners, Alcatel-Lucent, for $27 million after the Township Holmdel approved a redevelopment proposal that includes plans for a health care center, residences, hotel, and retail space.
Exterior of Bell Labs building archpaper.com |
The sale of the site concludes a long debate over the fate of the vacant building located in a wealth rural area, just what to do with all 1.9 million square feet of space may prove to be a more difficult task. The Garden State is already saturated with aging office parks, similar to the Bell Labs site. A prospective tenant looking to lease space in a large commercial building in Monmouth County has his or her choice of almost 2.53 million square feet of available space to choose from, according to data provided by commercial real estate brokerage firm, CBRE. The plethora of available space in rural communities, such as Holmdel, is not likely to be filled so quickly as American work habits have changed and companies relocate to urban centers. It seems that the former Bell Labs campus has fallen victim to its own success.
Interior of Bell Labs archpaper.com |
Bell Labs atrium nj.com |
Horned-antenna satellite en.wikipedia.org |
Atrium garden nytimes.com |
Somerset Development plans to sell half of the land, 237 acres, to Toll Brothers, a luxury home builder. Toll Brothers will build about forty single-family homes with prices beginning at $1 million for a 4,000 square-foot house to $2 million for a square-foot residence on a 2.5 acre lot. The company also plans to build 185 high-end town homes for residents aged fifty-five and older. However, the scale of the proposed housing development irritates some of the residents and preservationists who are concerned that it will detracted from pastoral appeal of the land. "I don't care for an excessive number of residential units that sprawl all over the property," says Ralph B. Blumenthal, a founding trustee of the Friends of Holmdel Open Space. "They could have accomplished something different that could have been more compact." Reservations about the Somerset proposal aside, supporters of the building are relieved to see the architectural icon survive. Michael Calafati, the chair person of the American Institute of Architects New Jersey Historic Resources Committee and an advocate of the property declared, "We're all going to come and go, but these buildings are out legacy."
The opposing views presented by Messrs. Blumenthal and Calafati highlight the sometimes antagonistic relationship between preservation and development. Mr. Blumenthal questions why a sprawling housing estate is necessary when more compact housing-i.e multi-resident buildings-could provide housing without taking up a lot of open land. Mr. Calafati seems to take a more romantic view of building. It is true that people come and go while buildings remain, I wonder if this is the right approach to development of the former Bell Labs property. Also problematic is attracting retail and commercial tenants. Holmdel is not near any metropolitan area, thus the ability to attract retail clients, i.e Gap or J.Crew, would be limited. Therefore, any retail/commercial ventures would have to focus on servicing the employees of the health care facilities and the residents in the immediate area. The prospect of rehabilitating the former Bell Labs property looks promising but what direction it takes will be the product of both developers and residents concerned with preservation of the site working together.
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