The Urban Redevelopment Corporation of Stamford, Connecticut, has commissioned Herbert S. Newman and Partners of New Haven, Connecticut, as architect for the design of a new 500-car parking garage to be located at the juncture of Summer and Washington Streets in the Palace Theatre district.

The garage is part of a new downtown plan for an urban renaissance in the city of Stamford. The program calls for an architecturally significant parking garage that will be lively and inviting for visitors to the neighborhood. Herbert S. Newman and Partners' design attempts to transform the functional structure of the garage with an architecturally dynamic façade that will enliven and energize the urban intersection and demonstrate that an everyday program of car storage can evoke a sense of wonder and delight. The façade will serve as a pedestrian arcade, an open thoroughfare for visitors to walk from the parking lot to the street, which expresses human scale, accessibility, and a celebration of urban life. The design is made of a series of translucent polycarbonate panels supported by a steel armature which surrounds the garage on its public facades. A series of "glass" shards, derivative of Alvar Aalto's glass vase designs, will sparkle and reflect the life of the neighborhood. At night it will glow. Because funding sources provide for 1% of the construction cost of the neighborhood development project of commercial and housing uses be devoted to art, the strategy is to devote these funds to the garage facade.