archiham04

there won't be a saks in southpark village. the rezoning that the mall had to go through with the neighborhood (lawsuits and all) limits the sf. The Neiman's Pad and the village site are the only permitted areas left to build on and the sf is locked in on those.

..."southpark village" on the corner is the real reason they are building the deck... mid rise residential over retail... formerly "holiday park"... that has not gone away. in fact, it is getting ready to crank up very soon.

the big ugly metal green boxes that they installed around the greenway are water quality monitors. They monitor the water before it enters the creek. That means that they are going to be able to check the nitrogen/chemical content in the runoff from the over watered, over fertilized lawns in Myers Park. This is great news because nitrogen and chemicals from lawn fertilzer/pesticides has often been suspected of being a huge "non point-source" polluter that is hard to monitor and hold people accountable for...

I think people shop at IKEA for the style + price combo. Not price itself. The furniture is pretty hip IMO.

I spend a lot of time on the new part of the greenway off Westfield Rd (behind Park Road Shopping Center) and it is probalby one of my favorite parks in the city... the detention ponds looked kind of strange at first, but they are full of water plants rocks and fish now. The stream has been naturalized and its meanders with huge boulders and man made shoals. All kinds of ducks and other birds hang out there... the other day I saw an grey egret-looking bird perched in the middle of the creek.

What's the average visablity in Charlotte? Visitors to an observation tower might only be able to see a few miles with all the ozone and smog days we have here. I agree that the region's scenery is worth looking at, but it is cetainly threatened. We need to start concentrating our public dollars on cleaning up all of the problems we have created so that we will have something to look at if a tower is ever built... On that note, building a fake river along the Sugar Creek Greenway would be an environmental disaster. The greenway IS being built for the public enjoyment, and possible real estate stimulous, but also for a whole host of other important reasons. The greenway and creek naturalization process is improving water quality, managing stormwater, and restoring damaged ecosystems. Deepening the channel and creating a false river is about the least responsible thing to do from a sustainabliltiy standpoint.

In the spirit of Charlotte "Off Topic"... I heard about this publication last night for the first time and thought I would be of interest to folks here. http://www.charlotteviewpoint.org/ I apologize if this is old news to folks or if i've missed its mention in another thread. ...and staying "on topic"... I found urbanplanet when google kept sending me here

one would have to peddle pretty dang hard to do that...

Commissioners and council to vote soon... http://www.citizen-times.com/cache/article/news/70896.shtml The I-240 debate could end soon By Mark Barrett, Staff Writer Nov. 16, 2004 12:13 a.m. ASHEVILLE - Opponents of widening Interstate 240 in West Asheville to eight lanes worry a road that big will bring noise and traffic they associate with big cities like Atlanta and Charlotte. Opponents of limiting a widening to six lanes worry that a road that small might eventually resemble a parking lot. Three meetings this week might decide whose argument prevails. Buncombe County commissioners are scheduled to discuss today a resolution asking state government to make the section of road between the Westgate shopping center area and the I-26/I-40/I-240 interchange near the Western North Carolina Farmers Market six lanes wide. The project also is on the agenda for today's City Council meeting. Legally, the state does not necessarily have to do what council or commissioners ask. But on Thursday, a group of local government officials with the legal power to block state Department of Transportation plans is scheduled to weigh in as well. Area residents, officials and DOT employees have been talking about how many lanes the road should be for years. Widening is part of the larger I-26 Connector project, which will also involve reconfiguring the I-26/I-40/I-240 interchange and building a new crossing of the French Broad River just west of downtown Asheville. Local government officials voted for eight lanes in 2002, but significantly lower DOT traffic projections for the road released in 2003 reopened debate. DOT says the lower figures still point to a need for eight lanes, saying that a six-lane road would not move traffic properly by 2030. A DOT engineer said last month that the department will continue to plan for eight lanes. The French Broad River Metropolitan Planning Organization, made up of representatives of 18 local governments in Buncombe, Haywood and Henderson counties, is scheduled to decide Thursday whether to reverse a predecessor organization's 2002 vote or tell DOT to continue with eight lanes. Some West Asheville residents and others mounted an effort this year to get DOT and local officials to change their minds. West Asheville resident Celia Naranjo said she has seen plenty of big and busy roads elsewhere and worries about the amount of noise one a few blocks from her home would bring to the neighborhood. "You only have to travel to Raleigh and those places to see what a disaster it can become. I really feel like communities get lost," she said. The number of cars a wider road would bring "seems like a ridiculously large amount of traffic to be funneling through a small city," she said. DOT "should at a minimum let the information continue to develop" and look at alternatives like better public transportation, said Doug Ruley of the Southern Environmental Law Center. "There has been no effort to say what we could do to make six lanes work." A draft resolution prepared for commissioners to consider today backs six lanes "or the minimum amount of lanes that will not slow the process yet be the most viable solution to the traffic demands for this area and will meet the federal standards for level of service on interstates." Nathan Ramsey, chairman of the board of commissioners, said he will vote against the resolution as currently worded. The issue has become an emotional one out of proportion to the relatively small difference in impact on West Asheville between a six- and an eight-lane road, he said. "I think this is going to be the last time this road's going to be improved in my lifetime. I think we need to build a road that is adequate to handle the traffic," Ramsey said. "The engineers still conclude it needs to be eight lanes." Some area residents apparently agree. "Anything less than eight lanes would be inadequate even before it is completed. Please go ahead and help with this terrible traffic," Arden resident Joan Mathis wrote the French Broad River MPO earlier this year. Contact Barrett at 232-5833 or [email protected].

I think that, as impractical as light rail and streetcar service seem in Asheville at present, there are ways in which the city should ease toward future needs. We have all seem cities (ALT) which invest millions into transit to fit an infastructure that was not designed to accomodate it. They could look at Charlotte, which is doing a great job to use the planning department to encourage current development to accomodate future transit potential. The city should look into low cost alternatives such as Bus Rapid Transit corridors, and small area planning/rezoning. BRT lines, and deadicated bus roads, can help establish better ridership, and the infastructure they support, can more easily be converted to a light rail or trolley system in the future. Small area plans and rezoning toward denser development at nodes around these corridors would increase the walkablity of communities and, in turn, ridership. I have been imagining a north BRT line connecting downtown, UNCA, and possibly the north merrimon retail center. The route would use the lexington corridor downtown, head north along broadway, then cut over to merrimon through the large undeveloped area south of the university. This area has recently been proposed as an option for development in the arena discussions. If this area is going to be developed, which is seeming more likely, a transit oriented development (oriented around a BRT with the intent of future light rail, or trolley) could bring housing options to the UNCA students, connect them to downtown, and be itself a great new walkable community.

I don't think that they are planning on attaching Galyans. Last I heard they were going create a plaza with exterior facing restaurants and retail .... similar to streets at southpoint...

I don't think that this article is suggesting widening all of I-240, or that widening is an option in lieu of a by pass. From what I remember, (correct me if I'm wrong) there are 4 options on how to transition over the French broad and the widening of 240 through west Asheville is an entirely separate issue...