Bloomingdale's opens today at the corner of Brand and Broadway downtown Glendale. During the day, the building looks a million times better than the drab brick fortress that existed before.
At night, however, the embedded lighting seems both underlit and overlit in a way that's distracting, and some have brought up safety concerns. The LEDs are way too bright, but the rest of the exterior is barely visible at all. Lowering the intensity of the LEDs and adding some upward pointing lights at the corners of the building to provide some soft illumination of the building itself would decrease the harsh contrast and be less distracting. You can also see in the picture that the streetlight on the corner wasn't working, which further increases the contrast between super bright and super dark. When I compared the reality of the lighting to the rendering of the "night view" presented to the City Council*, I was struck by the difference.
Despite these details, which will hopefully be worked out, it's good to have this corner activated again. For many months, three of the corners at Brand and Broadway were vacant. As of this week, all four corners are occupied and bustling with activity.
*Update: I found this description of the lighting system on page 25 of the council packet:
Lighting: Portions of the mosaic facade containing glass will be back lit to produce a glowing pattern at night. At the northeastern corner of the building where the panel systems meet, a gap between these systems will be lit and create a strong vertical light well. Additionally, the upper floors step back slightly from the black tile first floor to create a small shelf for concealed lighting that will wash the mosaic pattern with light. This effect would be accentuated if a reflective material such as stainless steel projected 8 inches from the roof to "catch" the up-lighting and create a thin cornice of light.
Is the lower concealed lighting just not operational yet?
