Chester Cheeto

Somebody didn't get the memo...

I shouldn't think it would be an issue saving the facade. This picture brings back some memories of Christchurch, New Zealand after the earthquake in 2011. They had quite a few buildings fall (granted it wasn't because of somebody's dumbassery), but were able to maintain the original use and look of the building after getting somewhat creative in saving the facade of the building. The building above was able to be restored (plenty of pictures in link below). I should think rebuilding a much simpler wooden structure with an existing facade would be a piece of cake, just hope the owner has some deep pockets. http://isaactheatreroyal.co.nz/our-history/2011-earthquake/earthquake-photo-gallery/#1046prettyPhoto[gallery]/30/

I have to say I find it highly appropriate that the last two things standing are the much maligned 6x6 wooden posts. Keep standing little fellas, nobody believed in you!

Back on the market. http://www.mlive.com/news/grand-rapids/index.ssf/2017/02/kent_county_makes_second_attem.html#incart_river_home I hope Franklin Partners are still interested, I'm still a little heartbroken that the Keeler building purchase feel through, but I've liked what I've seen from FP in what they have done around town.

The wife and I recently traded city life for country living, I guess adding a few kids to the family makes one want to have room to spread out some, who knew... Anyways, the random updates for projects around Belknap are going to stop from me. But now since my commute to/from the office takes me through Ada, random update shots for all the construction going on there will happen sporadically. These shots were taken heading north on Ada Dr, about to turn east onto Fulton. (sorry for the blur, light just turned green) And here is Kingmas, which will have some frontage along Fulton itself. Looking at the overhead shot below, the first building is roughly the left half of the red box and a little beyond along Ada Dr, and Kingmas is roughly the right half of the red box and beyond with some frontage along Fulton. There is also another building that just got the roof joists installed further west along Fulton, where Headley and Fulton intersect, I'll take a little detour tonight on my way home to snap a picture or two of that job site.

So this building has 1740 square feet of second floor. Assuming, conservatively, the second flooring weighs 20 psf, which in my line of work a wood framed mezzanine that weighs 20 psf is considered very heavy, that's 20 psf * 1740 = 34,800 lbs. That means those two 6x6 posts could support the entire second floor by themselves if needed, not that any self respecting engineer would ever dream of doing such a thing. I'd think it's safe to say that a significant chunk of that weight will go to the three remaining exterior walls, so those two posts shouldn't be seeing anywhere close to their 35,000 lb capacity. Does anybody know how the roof is framed out? Are there any load bearing walls on the second floor?

Heh... looks like the Google Maps street view car got into a tussle with a tree.

"Office tower?" Even by Grand Rapids standard of towers, that thing is only like a half a tower.

As a structural engineer, in my professional opinion, I don't see what the big deal is...

Joe, I feel like you should think higher of yourself than to resort to calling yourself ugly names.

There will be another GVSU/Belknap update meeting March 13th at the Coit School. Website for anybody interested: http://gvsunoblplanning.org/ Presentation from last update meeting: http://gvsunoblplanning.org/sites/gvsunoblplanning.org/files/document/pdf/GVSU Belknap 2016-12-21_Community Meeting_FINAL UPDATES.pdf

Looks like the Coit Square project has gotten quite a dramatic revamp per the new renderings posted by the Artesian Group on their FB page. https://www.facebook.com/Artesian-Group-241557175965627/

Well I heard from a source that worked in the building when the "modern" facade was added they had to run cables in the floors between the two buildings, because the walls were bowing out quite badly, to pull them back together. I walked by this building last night and thought I glimpsed one of the anchors the cables are attached to.

I'm pretty sure that is going to be the path that runs down around the hill to the stairs on Division. I took a picture of it a week or so back.

Nope, the Artesian Group. Same people that have proposed the Coit Sqaure project.

Maybe knock down the parking garage and use that area as the staging space? Then when the tower's structure is up and they are doing inside finish work they could rebuild a new parking ramp and use Louis St. as the staging area. I seem to recall the parking garage looked like it had some changes to the ground floor (adding retail) in some earlier renditions. It might be simpler to just start from scratch on the parking ramp then investigate into possible reinforcements and then do the potential reinforcements.

They were working on my phone when I first posted the picture, not sure what happened but they are working on my laptop now. Hopefully they show up for you too.

So i'm not sure what's going on, i just tried editing my previous post and ended up with a copy with more broken pictures. How do you delete a post on this site?

Well it's been awhile since I did some update shots, so here goes nutting: First up Clancy Lofts: And the Gateway: And the GVSU site (sorry it's so dark): And finally, they have started the path that goes from the Hastings/Coit overpass down to Monroe: I noticed the parking behind Clancy Lofts was built under the alleyway, it was too dark to snap a pic but I'll get one in the next day or two, I thought it was pretty interesting the way they handled the parking for that project.

Too tall, too dense, not enough parking, worked too hard on their homes to have to look at townhomes just outside their backyards...didn't want people to be able to see in their backyards.

I was wondering if this was going to make a comeback from the last neighborhood meeting I went to, the people along Trowbridge were pretty adamant that they did not want this in their backyard. They have some renderings on the listing on Zillow: http://www.zillow.com/homes/for_sale/23805153_zpid/0-300000_price/0-1053_mp/featured_sort/42.979825,-85.658609,42.966025,-85.681676_rect/15_zm/

Could there be some foreshadowing on the overhead views? Ottawa is shown having two way traffic and the parking lot in the 5/3 campus to the south of the plaza is marked as 'future retail.' I like elements in all three options and would be happy with any of them, especially the retail options along Monroe.

Demolition for GVSU has begun.

I think one way to fix the slowdowns that happen at some of these on-ramps is to educate people on how to properly enter a highway. I for the life of me cannot figure out why people have this belief that if they don't merge before they are going 35 mph onto the highway their car will just straight up explode... I've lived in a few states over the past couple of years, and nowhere else (to my knowledge) does this occur, where somebody trying to get onto the highway, instead of speeding up to get going to the flow of traffic, will instead slow down or even come to a complete stop until somebody on the highway slows down or stops to let the merging traffic from the on-ramp in. Maybe this happens in other places around the states, I don't know, but to me it is absolutely befuddling. I mean the solid white line on the pavement screams *DO NOT CROSS ME* yet everybody is trying to merge before the solid white line stops and the dashed white line which means *THIS IS A LANE BUT YOU ARE FREE TO ENTER OTHER LANES OF TRAFFIC* begins. I work on 28th Street and live just north of downtown, so I enter I-96 at the 28th street on-ramp and have to go through the Cascade interchange everyday, and I firmly believe that if people knew how to properly merge with the flow of traffic my drive time could be cut in half. That, and a third lane between Cascade and Fulton so the Cascade traffic doesn't have to even merge, but that is unlikely and I'll take any small victory at this point. *end rant* (man that felt good ) Place some of these white sticks between the merge lane and the highway so people cannot cross the solid white line, along with some signage stating the fact that you should get up to speed before any attempt to merge would be a big help. Hopefully this diverging diamond will help as well. I apologize this in no way furthered the discussion for the topic at hand and that you are all now stupider for having read my rant.

I was talking about the ground floor in the parking garage.