Cityscape at Belmar Excavation Underway

Fences are up, and excavation is underway for the Cityscape at Belmar project.

Construction Starts on Emergency Medical Facility at 260 S. Wadsworth

Fences are up and initial construction is underway at 260 S. Wadsworth Blvd., which is the vacant lot just north of the Walgreens on the northeast corner of Wadsworth and Alameda.

The two story building will be an emergency medical center with a brick and stone facade fronting Wadsworth. The building will only take up about a third of the lot-- the rest of which will be devoted to parking and an ambulance drop-off. The plans call for quite a bit of landscaping, including trees, benches, bike racks, street lights, trashcans, and sidewalks connecting the building to the Walgreens next door.

As a whole, the development is fairly low density, which is unfortunate in my book, but I do like how the surface parking is hidden from the street. I also appreciate the requirement that the building rise to two stories on the side where it fronts Wadsworth, as both Wadsworth and Alameda require taller buildings along them in the downtown area in order to create that sense of being in a central business district.

Originally I'd heard the facility would be run by Health One, but now it looks like it will be Swedish.

I should also point out that this development has not been without controversy. It backs up to the Villas, a suburban-stye residential area, and the Villas Neighborhood Association has been concerned about noise and light pollution, particularly from the sirens of arriving ambulances. The developers assured the association that the vast majority of clients would arrive by private car and that the number of ambulances arriving with sirens running would be as low as 20 a year.