urbanlife

I get what you are saying here, especially since Granby once was closed to vehicles and it failed horribly. I think the difference is from then compared to today is the activity along that street. If you have a struggling street, closing it down to vehicles isn't going to magically make people show up and start walking around, which is what happened last time this was done. Today, from my brief visit since moving away that I made several years ago, it seemed like Granby was a much more pedestrian active street with a lot more active businesses. Since it currently has the pedestrian activity, closing the street for pedestrians and allowing bars and restaurants have more outdoor seating would help the area flourish and grow beyond the growth that has already happened. I would say now is the best time to close down Granby to vehicles and let it be a pedestrian/bicycle corridor. I would almost say that it should be done for the stretch between Brambleton and Virginia Beach Blvd as well, and bringing the Neon District into the mix. Now if you want to dream big dreams, I would say close all of Granby to vehicles until where it merges with Church and run a new light rail line straight up that road spurring off the existing line. Then have that light rail line run all the way up to Ocean View and giving Norfolk a light rail line that runs right up the middle of the city.

It looks like it will make a good addition to the downtown, nothing flashy or tall, but it looks good. I am also impressed with my old Junior High getting a new building. Princess Anne Middle School looks like it will be an awesome looking school.

I have done a lot of studying from that era of developing and it was a strong mindset of "out with the old and in with the new." So many cities were willing to tear down entire old neighborhoods if it meant it would bring prosperity to the city in the form of new developments. Unfortunately after bombing the crap out of cities in Europe, we didn't see the cost of a city's history being destroyed. After the war, we should have decided to renovate existing buildings and strengthen our urban fabric rather than continuous sprawling outward of new low density developments. Thankfully I wasn't around during those days to see these old urban neighborhoods being torn down because of such short sighted views.

Where is that located in VB? I don't remember it while growing up there. The inscription and the UK flag makes me think it is something war related, probably WW2 related.

Looking at those old photos, Norfolk could have taken what is the Neon District today and Young Terrace and redeveloped that whole area as the new skyscraper city center district rather than tearing down everything along Main for new towers. This would have created a new downtown while preserving the old downtown and having Granby be the connection between the two districts. Unfortunately the short sighted views, white flight, and post WW2 federal money that only went to redevelopment rather than renovation of existing areas, combined with Norfolk being one of the first cities to get this federal money to tear down its downtown for future developments and new public housing essentially ruined the city that one existed there. Had Norfolk preserved its downtown and built its highrise district in the Neon District area, I would probably be living in Norfolk today rather than moving across the country. If you measure downtown Norfolk from the Waterfront to the Elmwood Cemetery, and from Fort Norfolk to Tidewater Dr, you have the same amount of land that is similar to downtown Boston. Had Norfolk preserved much of their historic downtown while building a new highrise district to the north of it, combine that with infill projects going in all around in the downtown and we would have had the Boston of the Mid-Atlantic.

Norfolk 1949 and Norfolk 1958 It is so crazy to see what Norfolk looked like even in the late 50's, so much of its history was erased in such a short period of time. The urban fabric the city had was quite amazing for a smaller city on the east coast. Just imagine what the city would look like today if the current towers in downtown were integrated into the urban fabric that once existed in the city.

It is a lot with some old trees on it, nothing worth preserving, but you definitely have the right ideas of what should be built on that site. When it comes to a tree lined park, Commercial Park is literally half a block away and has more trees and better designed as a park space downtown. I think they should also include parallel parking along Waterside Dr, as well as a large sidewalk would be what is needed to encourage people to access that side of the street. I really hope the city doesn't miss out on a possibility for a great design that best creates streetscape activity.

This is a good time for these businesses to cut their losses and let go of some properties like this. That would be a good thing for some of the suburban things around the Town Center to fail and open up land for redevelopment.

True, I have seen this plenty times before where nice ideas are presented with no actual backers that eventually just gets filed away in some sort of archives. I could see the mall redevelopment happening simply because I think a lot of malls are going to go under because of this pandemic since many malls were on the verge of collapsing before this pandemic.

I agree that something more grand should be built in that location, even if it is shorter, trying to not block views of the Icon, but I wouldn't call that underdeveloped lot a veritable unicorn or urban forest. That person needs to come to Portland, Oregon and I will show them what a real urban forest looks like. There is no good reason to save some 50 year old trees that were planted for a bank's suburban style drive thru in the middle of a downtown.

The route that would make the most sense would be having a light rail bridge at Harbor Park, then run it through South Norfolk down Battlefield Blvd. to Volvo Pkwy. Though running it down 464 would also be a possible route, though I don't think that route would reach as many people as down Battlefield would.

Those look great for forward steps for the city, especially the idea of redeveloping the mall.

This looks a lot like what Portland, Maine looks like today. It would have been great to have this kind of historic city density with the taller modern buildings Norfolk has now mixed in.

That will make for a nice downtown for Chesapeake for the next generations.

What's the chances the warehouse will eventually get redeveloped into an urban development attached to this starter grid system?

If that building had survived, it would have been my favorite building in Norfolk growing up.

A couple more buildings the size of this one and a few 6 story buildings would create quite an residential urban district with quite a nice little skyline.

I feel like if the city kept those piers and warehouses along the water, it would have seen a mix of working and living harbor. I would imagine it would look a lot like what Portland, Maine's waterfront looks like today.

It is so devastating to see how much of the downtown was torn down at the same time. It was the most destruction done to a city that wasn't because of a war. Norfolk would have looked like a much different and unique urban city today if they just did selective urban renewal rather than this clean slate approach.

The metro would have been better off not doing all those mergers in the 60s, a city like Virginia Beach would have grown into being 2-3 cities, with Virginia Beach being the oceanfront, maybe a town of some sort out of the Chick's Beach area, and probably the Pembroke area becoming its own city. This would have helped Norfolk stay the focal point of the metro, but the surrounding towns could have better governed themselves without being held back by people in other parts of the area that are extremely anti growth. A guy like this could have easily just been a County Commissioner and saying the county will block any new growth while not having an impact on the cities in the metro that did want to grow. I might have also created more centralized towns that could have seen more urban development within their own borders.

That makes sense, not every building needs to have a garage and hotels have such a flux with parking needs that the surrounding public garages and maybe valet services should be more than enough.

Exactly, this is the exact kind of developments that should be going up in SPQ.

That looks like it will be a nice addition.

Virginia Beach and Hampton Roads has to convince young people to move to the region over choosing Northern Virginia.

Or at least establish a Metro Government that takes care of metro issues.