archiham04

It was a design-build contract so the story is that the contractor is responsible, but I think the initial design criteria might be in dispute. If the owner's supplied design criteria was faulty, I would imagine there would be room for (at minimum) distributed responsibility.

What do you bet they tear down that clock about 2 years before 90's aesthetic gains appreciation as historic.

I think it is the transition from business that caters to the masses to business that caters to the gentry. It's almost as if we are gentry-if- y -ing ? or gentry-i - cating... searching for a word... can't seem to put my finger on it...

I'm going to wait until the restaurants and/or retail move in, but for now the final product confirms my fear that this would be a bad urban streetscape.

that window that spans from the masonry to the eifs is tweaks me out

I'd have to say of all the outcomes ^that would be the best. The only thing worse than a parking deck fronting a street, is a parking deck fronting a street corner. I am crossing my fingers really hard that the old deck gets torn down. (highly doubt it though)

The crazy thing about the streetcar to me is how short lived it was if you think about it. We all think about the light rail and the current street car as being something that will be here for 100 years, but the original system was mostly built in the 20s (some predate but mostly) and then dismantled in the 50s. Really, as a system it only functioned for like 20-30 years! ...and 10 of those years were in a depression, and 4 a World War.

I think this should be high high priority. I'm going to see if I can get some neighbors on it.

So does anyone know if the contract with Pappas was renewed? the one set to expire August 31?

By high speed I mean the cars and and specifically all the "at speed" turns and transitions. Ramps, hills, and transitions for cars traveling at a 50-70mph design speed have to be smoothed out a very far distance back. While they will be building rail, the will be impacting the road grade somewhat and once you lower one piece, it impacts everything. They likely didn't want to spend the money at this time paying for all of these car related changes so they punted the costs for that to the future (undecided and possibly never built) rail line.

recreated in google maps:

I took down the pinhouse project (completed), changed the Kickstand/Commonhouse property to "Boutique Hotel", and Added the Atrium expansion that was recently referenced in the Dilworth thread. EDIT also added the Montford/Abbey place connectivity project

I hope you are right

This is due to all the stops uptown, and cannot be fixed in my opinion. I have complained about this on other boards. The commute from NoDa to South End is quicker on a bike.

RE: bridge building: So it is my understanding that the light rail, if it were to be built in the express lanes, would not have clearance under the bridge. It seems like they could dig down, but from my limited knowledge of traffic design, there are wide ranging implications to adjusting the elevations of high speed routes.

I have asked around beyond the echo chambers of UP and there is a consistent acknowledgement from folks that the Hawthorne Bridge will again be in the way once they start looking at light rail down independence. The most credible person I have spoken with has been a Construction team memeber for the Blue Line Extension who helped estimate during the bid phase of the Streetcar Extension.

I am not disappointed by this in the least. Great sign that the neighborhood is healthy and can support mixed uses that do not compete for parking.

...But the basic principal is the same... the county bought up a bunch of perfectly viable properties that fronted a main street and blocked access to Little Sugar Creek and turned them into a park and front door for the greenway. Why shouldn't they do it on N Tryon?

I don't know if this has been discussed in other threads, but I'd like to see N. Tryon block from Craighead to Sugar Creek given the Kings Drive treatment. It might be harder to do on N Tryon: Kings drive was mostly national retail chain tenants that the city bought and tore down... and N. Tryon is likely locally owned small business. ...but you would think it would be at least less expensive.

This is great. Only issue is I think the section between carson and stonewall is currently called South Blvd. It doesn't change to Caldwell until it gets to Stonewall. Does anyone have good photos of the Independence/South/Morehead intersection ca2000? This was grade separated originally and I recall pieces of the intersection still being in place when I moved to town in 2000, but I can't confirm.

To answer more directly, no the curve in Caldwell is different. The Caldwell curve was the result of another vestige of the era of urban renewal: public housing projects

there are some things I miss, but agree that it is a good site.

^yes, they engaged Plaza Midwood and Commonwealth Morningside neighborhoods and neither objected to the rezoning request to reduce parking requirements.

There are some notable attributions to UP in that edition of the Ledger....