urbanfan

The former Lincoln Park neighborhood, is nearly a mile away from the furthest edge of downtown. That doesn't sound like much, but when you consider downtown itself is small, it really is nowhere near the downtown area, and currently is in a very neglected area of town where project housing was torn down and nothing built, just pieces of slab where buildings used to sit. Certainly wouldn't want to see this junk downtown but certainly appropriate for the area.

Electron made its debut with a successful launch after the scrubbed mission in December. This initial rocket is not reusable but the next series will be.

It looks like an extended stay hotel which that area needs sorely. I have yet to see an extended stay hotel more than 5 or six floors.

Crossing a long elevated footbridge to get to different exhibits doesn't make sense to the museum. They want people to be able to get to exhibits as succinctly as possible, thus the reason they are squeezing everything onto one side of the road.

The scope site would be best in terms of location to downtown and light rail. However, the cost of demolition and demolition of the underground parking would be prohibitive for them and that is just to get the lot construction ready. I'm sure they are looking for a shovel ready lot to keep the costs down. There would be enough room to build a large parking garage and complex between HP and the train station but leaving Right of Way for the Casino development behind it would be pretty messy. The only shovel ready site I see downtown is the large parking lot at Virginia Beach Blvd and Monticello. Large surface parking lot shovel ready to go. To me not ideal location but in my opinion, the City does not have a track record of spending the money to put things where they should be. Don't be surprised if that lot gets mentioned as a possible downtown site.

D.C. will not be traveling down here to hit casinos when Ocean City and others are closer and more lucrative. Both markets have over 1 million in population and are well over three hours away from the nearest casino. I do not believe either will be in competition. However, the one in Richmond is going the tribal route unlike the one in Hampton Roads which is banking on General Assembly approval. If that is the case HR casino should get built sooner.

That was part of the plan to remove the existing satellite lot to make room for the future apron and terminal in that spot.

Knock it down, the future for mall retail is bleak. Leave the garages and build an arena mixed use facility in its place!

It will actually be built next to the existing parking garages, where they have already built the 9 story stair and elevator tower attached to arrivals. All of the long term parking lot will go away leaving it open to expand the current apron and possibly add a third terminal in that area.

It is a confirmed development. It was announced last fall of last year. I believe the tenant is Ferguson/Wolsley instead of building the larger headquarters up near the airport.

The permit says there will be a direct connection to the existing tower right next to this new one. I would have to go back and look but from what I read that tower should be staying.

If you read the permit it says that there will be offices and day treatment at this tower. It says that this tower will not have overnight care. Therefore, the other tower must remain as their main treatment facility unless they plan to completely do away with long term care at CHKD. Highly unlikely!

Sure did, really helps that area of town too! Great infill project.

Just for information. HRT is posting their previous day ridership numbers every day on their home page. Ridership numbers have been in the high five thousand to upper six thousands, well over double the projected ridership figures. The numbers have also steadily increased for three straight days. This is during regular service with fare required. Numbers might fall some but probably not much considering baseball games are going to help keep the numbers up for a little while. I'm waiting to see the ridership numbers after a weekend tides game to see the impact it has on the days numbers.

The ridership numbers on this line are drastically conservative. All rail lines have overly conservative numbers. There has yet to be a single new rail line open that did not meet it's ridership numbers and that is by design. No one wants egg on their face especially the federal government. The line will meet and exceed its initial ridership quota, no question.

To be fair the statistics support this theory, as soccer is not popular in the US. A generalization yes, but nonetheless, an accurate generalization.

To be fair, kids have been being raised on soccer for well over 45 years. The term soccer mom is not from this generation but actually from the 70's and 80's. We need something more for soccer to become mainstream in the U.S. Games like against Algeria a few days ago, help to create that excitement, but for the most part soccer has been relegated to secondary status. As far as the UFL vs MLS, this area has been and will continue to be football country. Heck, Hampton and Phoebus games pull 4-6,000 fans when they play (that's high school mind you). Football will do significantly better here than soccer even if it is lower level than professional. We had a semi-professional football team on the peninsula that packed games up at Todd Stadium. However, it succumbed to financial difficulties, but my point being, people will always support football in this area. That's just the way it is.

The train tracks are non driving lanes. The trains will not share lanes with cars. However, the train will have to cross certain streets which theoretically could be blocked by people not paying attention to road and train signs. So yes, your point is valid that one idiot can cause delays on the system. That is the case for almost all light rail systems across the country especially within downtown limits.

Really, I don't know what 460 you have been driving on but you go ahead and do 60 MPH on it and see if you don't get a ticket for 60 plus in a 30mph district. (as I just did two months ago) The road goes through several small cities and the speed limit waffles between 25 and 55 mph (never 60) though many go quite a bit faster and never get caught. A dedicated road to Richmond will benefit the area much like the new Route 17 in North Carolina has helped tourism as a dedicated highway has allowed that stretch of road to post a speed limit of 75 MPH. (Posted not perceived) Is it more important than a widened HRBT, I think not, but studies are already under way for that. We have to work at all aspects without losing sight of the goal, which is congestion relief but also evacuation capacity. Right now we just don't have the capacity to evacuate the area efficiently. 460 would allow a greater capacity. We also have to think about land use planning. 10 - 20 years ago the move was eastward into VaBeach and Chesapeake. Now that these areas are filling the move is westward including Portsmouth, Suffolk and even Southampton County. While people in VaBeach would not travel completely around Norfolk to get to a highway, those in western Hampton Roads would. Seeing that this is the next forefront in expansion of our metro, it seems wise to expand the capacity of the road system, so that we are not forced to dump more people on our already maxed out highways.

Belmont was a two- seven story building first, then went to skyscraper and then back to the form it now occupies. We can say it was attributed to light rail because the developer himself said it was the main contributing factor for why he was building it. Reading through previous posts and the news links (if still valid) will bear this out. Furthermore, the Residence Inn had the same reason for being located where it is. Wells Fargo also stated the proximity of light rail in part of its reasoning to build. There has definitely been plenty with regard to light rail.

Totally different situation. They get stone because they have their own quarry they get the stone from. A much cheaper setup than actually having to truck this stuff in. ODU is not afforded this ability and must buy on the open market. With building material prices so high you will continue to see developments like ODU and Freemason across the US. This is not the only area that incorporates this type of construction. It is pretty much across the board nationwide right now. Anything to keep costs down.

Nascar sports grill opens tonight at the power plant in Hampton also. Only the third restaraunt of its kind. TV's at every table which you can watch personally whatever you desire. Sounds like a neat environment. Also, a dueling piano's type saloon opening up next to it in a few months. The Colliseum area is really taking off. By summer this place will be hopping (assuming anyone has any money by then).

Actually amtrak runs right through downtown Williamsburg. But I understand your point. However, most people going to games and stadiums do so by driving not transit. Ease of traffic is a much better selling point for a stadium at this point.

Actually, all we would have to do to become Charlotte is buy back the banks they bought from us. People seem to forget that Charlotte is what it is today because they successfully and aggressively bought up as many banks as they possibly could at our expense. Had bankers in Norfolk had that type of aggressiveness, it would be Norfolk not Charlotte with the incredible explosion.

The picture is obviously stretched quite noticeably. That is why dominion looks so stubby and short. Looks to me that the picture should be more square and someone stretched it to a rectangular orientation.