RichardC

Spaces such as the one here, Flywheel, are important and crucial for encouraging entrepreneurial ideas from professionals who cannot afford the overhead of office space among their peers. This type of space is already being copied in other cities and communities. I was in the WFIQ last week, and the new development is quite impressive at night with the newly renovated buildings lighted. It is truly like a totally different high tech section of the city, especially directly adjacent to BioTech Place, 525@Vine, and Inmar. The new park should create tremendous energy for the area.

historic?....

I'm not interested in sparring with anyone who thinks they know high end, but has never been out of their realm, and has never even heard of Coach. The Friendly Shopping experience may be exclusive for the folks in Greensboro, but this is a big country, and there is much more out there. Make up shops and outlets for Apple phones are pretty commonplace, and Burlington is known for outlet malls isn't it? I don't care what Greensboro has that Winston-Salem does not, and vise versa. Just don't count on Nordstrom, IKEA, Neiman's or Saks anytime soon if your city's largest mall is losing commonplace anchors.

Excuse me....but I must be missing something. I visit the directory for "Friendly Center" and I could count on one hand what might be considered "high end." It must not take much to impress up there in Greensboro. Not that I shop at any of them, but here in Charlotte at Southpark I would put Tiffany's, Neiman's, Louis Vuitton, Hermes, or St. John in the top tier. Belk....(really, Belk?), Macy's, Sears, Barnes & Noble, Banana Republic.....pretty standard fair, don't you think? I could see Winston coming closer to getting another top tier department store first in the Triad. Greensboro doesn't even have a Pottery Barn does it?......I would put it at mediocre at best. Winston was the first to get even Abercrombie & Fitch years ago, and an H&M two years ago.

Winston-Salem is better off with Kimpton Boutique Hotels anyway. This puts Winston-Salem in the leagues with the nation's largest cities, and with markets such as Miami Beach, Aspen. La Jolla and others, with the free publicity and advertising. Plus with the 50/50 split occupancy of the Reynolds tower itself as hotel, and residency, Winston-Salem's downtown will gain even more single and multi-family units....the most of any downtown in the Triad region.

Don't get your hopes up, Hampton Inn typically doesn't build mid-rise structures. Where are all these overnight guests coming from to fill four!?! new hotels downtown, and what are they going to be coming there for? It can't be the struggling Civil Rights Museum.

Things are getting really rolling with this announcement and with the opening of Inmar downtown. Downtown Winston-Salem is becoming a cool place to work, and live. I wish I could be there to take in some of the RiverRun Film Festival this week.

The Winston-Salem streetcar proposal needs it's own thread. Anyway, the Winston-Salem Journal has a graphic with the preferred route. There are few 'curves', but many turns, with the exception of the curving turn at Burke Street and Fourth Street, and Burke Street at First Street, in the West End. Many European cities have streetcars and raillines that run thru the streets with turns, curves, cars and pedestrians.

An informative write up in the Triad Business Journal. http://www.bizjournals.com/triad/blog/2014/03/new-park-coming-to-winston-salems-wake-forest.html

Either the developers, or the media coverage of this persistent blown up hype did not play it smart before getting Trader Joes involved to even consider making a decision. Either way...a lot of us are tired of hearing and reading about it. Put the baby to bed.