Beany

Not that I am against this or any other downtown study but what is up with all of these studies? I mean it seems like so much is put into all these little studies with little coming out of it.

City is pushing to have a building on Elm demolished or restored: http://www.news-record.com/content/2009/09...ardous_property I hate when you have these long abandoned, run-down buildings just sitting their ripe for development but the property owner won't budge to sell at a reasonable price or do something with it. This is another key spot on S. Elm. I hope things can get moving on this. This concerns me though: Preservationists say that if the court allows the city to demolish the building, nothing can be built in its place. That

Thanks for the updates beyonce. Good to hear some positive news.

Yea I am not a big fan of the comment section they have for news articles. What you get a lot of are whiney people who want to complain and criticize everything. People who want to gripe are the ones who mostly post comments.

Where will this be located?

Those are really cool videos. Thanks for sharing. You even caught an airplane flying low over 40.

Wow. Those are some flashbacks. Local news use to be a big deal. But now with 24-hour news stations and the Internet they have really started to scale back.

The Tre Fo video is funny. Great clip of the lightening. You should send that to WXII.

In spite of the economy it is good to see all of these businesses opening.

Thanks city for posting that. It is a nice place and nice addition to downtown.

Glad to see these projects moving forward. Thanks beyonce for the update.

I didn't see a separate thread for this topic but I figured going forward there will be enough conversation around this to start one. The swim center is moving along quickly in an effort to take advantage of the current economy. I am glad they are doing their homework by visiting swim centers in other states. This will draw swim teams for competitions from all over the region. This fits well with what Greensboro does well--and that is hosting large, amateur competitions. Junior amateur golf at Sedgefield last week, NCAA regional track & field a few weeks ago, Nike Outdoor Nationals High School track & field, soccer tournaments are big every summer, ACC men and women basketball, NCAA regional basketball games, and so on and so forth. http://www.news-record.com/content/2009/06..._speeding_along

That is some encouraging news. Thanks for sharing.

W-S is looking for stimulus money to get the initial phase of the streetcar project underway. http://www2.journalnow.com/content/2009/ju...r-project/news/

I am probably in the minority here but I just don't see light rail being feasible in the Triad for a long time. Rail just doesn't address how and where people live, work, and play here. Maybe in 20 - 30 years things will be different. In the meantime it seems much more practical and would serve more people better if any increased funding in mass transit went toward adding more buses, routes etc. to the existing systems. Buses may not be sexy but they can go anywhere and cost enormously less. However I will say I would like to see high speed rail going across the country. There needs to be something better to compete with air travel.

I think Carroll has a taller building planned for that lot. He may not build until the market is favorable but I expect when it is built it will be at least as tall as Center Pointe and most likely taller. That lot is not very large and is surrounded by two fairly tall parking decks and Center Pointe. A high rise is the only thing which makes sense there and I have trouble envisioning a building of the same height as Center Pointe. To look right it will need to be a different height. Any shorter and it will barely get above the parking decks so taller makes more sense. That is also keeping with the concept drawings which were released several years ago.

^^ Yea, those are really cool. It would be neat to see some different designs. Now that Center Pointe is pretty much completed I think we may see something from Carroll in the near future. I admit I do not know a lot about the guide book or whatever it is called. I could be totally wrong about whether the height/setback thing would even apply to Carroll's case. It is like 150 pages and I just skimmed through it. I just feel like his arguments may not actually have to do with suburban-style development but rather some requirement which complicates his plans to build his second tower. For a man who chose to redevelop a long vacant office tower, in the heart of downtown, and choose to live there; he probably is more likely to build more urban-style developments rather than something that belongs in Green Valley.

This update helps to understand where he may be coming from. I glanced through the manual and there is a part in there where it talks about the height of the building can only be a certain percentage taller than the width of the sidewalk. If it is higher than that, then the building has to have setbacks as it goes up. Something to that effect. It may be that according to the guidelines he could not build a taller version of Center Pointe on his property next door. He may have already invested lots of money into the design of the second building which would now may not meet the requirements. That property is small which may mean setbacks are not even possible. If this were the case I might be upset and against the guidelines as well. The guidelines may be throwing a wrench into his plans. I initially wondered what suburban crap was he wanting to build. But it now sounds like his plans may actually be too urban for the guidelines. I understand a big part of the guidelines is to make sidewalks "friendly" by not having tall buildings looming over them or tall walls against them, but in some cases there should be exceptions. In many cases I would rather have a nice decorative retaining wall next to the sidewalk so the building could be closer to the street then have to set it back and put in landscaping next to the sidewalks. There needs to be some flexibility in the guidelines.

Thanks for posting the news link. I think this could be good or bad depending on how the university develops it. What I don't want to see is another parking lot fronting church street and a building set back away from the road.

Is there any developer out there which is in favor of restrictions on how they have to develop their properties? He may be just against the whole idea of a design manual and flexing his muscle so to speak to discourage it. Anyway, I thought the manual was a "guide" and not a strict requirement for developments.

Thanks for posting. This has been in the works for a long time.

I agree. If you are going to do anything just widen I-40 between W-S and Greensboro.

I agree with you. Downtown is the heart of a city. Just imagine if Koury Convention Center had been built downtown rather than on I-40. But old Joe Koury's vision then didn't include downtown. I wonder if he were alive today if he would be looking to build downtown. I would have rather had the ACC HOF downtown but at the same time I am not so sure about how much of an attraction it will be anyway. I can see it getting a lot of attention when the ACC tournament is in town or whenever Duke or Carolina plays at the coliseum but I bet the traffic will be very light otherwise. How many people are really going to go out of their way to look at a bunch of old ACC memorabilia? Having it at the coliseum will probably get it more attention since every time there is something going on the coliseum people can go see it. If it were downtown you would probably have a good crowd going to see it when it initially opened and then probably only a few after the hoopla wore off. I am not so sure even during the ACC tournament if many people would make the trip downtown to go look at it. But I could be just under-estimating the whole thing. I am ticked the Greensboro CVB moved out downtown and onto HP road. That is the thing that annoys me most. Instead of moving out of downtown they should be coming up with plans for a new, large visitor center downtown. Downtown Greensboro needs a facility with the CVB, a gift shop, public restrooms, and a large commons area with benches or sofas for groups and tourists to congregate. With more attractions opening downtown such as the civil rights museum it would be great to have a nice facility to serve as a starting point for people's trip to the city. The facility could probably even pay for itself by leasing out part of the building space to businesses.

I agree with you 100% a committee should have been used. There may have been a suitable arrangement downtown but it looks like we will never know. Although I have my doubts about whether a solution could have been come up with downtown which would have met the project requirements without requiring more money than what the bond was approved for. This swim center has been talked about for many years. I think if private involvement was possible we would have already heard about it. Don't you think if DGI really wanted it and thought there was a possibility for it they would have already worked to try to organize parties for it to possibly be downtown? They have surely known about it. I do question whether suitable parking could be arranged without driving project cost way up. Even though overall downtown has lots of parking many people are not going to want to walk 3 or 4 blocks to get to it. If parking is believed to be a pain it could hurt the overall success of the facility. It could mean the difference between a large swim meet choosing Cary over Greensboro because in Cary swim moms in their mini-vans do not have to worry about finding parking where their wet-headed swimmers can get in and out of a place easily. Again I am not against it downtown. I wish it were going to be there. But I just don't see that being very feasible. I do understand your frustration regarding city leaders. And I'm not deliberately trying to defend them, just that I also see another side to it. You may frustrated that the city isn't doing enough to financially support center city development. But at the same time there are many people who are just as fanatic that they do not want their hard earned money being taken away and given to businesses, corporations and special interest groups. City leaders have a responsibility to answer to everyone. I actually do agree with you about the role of government in fostering economic development but I also know many people would not agree with us. I respect the other side and understand the difficult decisions leaders have to make.

Just to offer a counterpoint-- I would love for the ACC Hall and Swim Center to both be downtown however I can understand putting it at the coliseum. The swim center is being built with taxpayer money. As such it should be built with some sense of frugality. A bond was voted on and approved for a swim center and a swim center is what the people will get. Unless the city already owns land downtown it would have to be purchased (which isn't cheap). There would have to be suitable parking which could require more land or a very expensive parking garage. Building it at the coliseum requires no land to be purchased and plenty of parking already available. Putting it downtown would certainly be another nice amenity however putting it at the coliseum will cost millions less and is the more responsible use of taxpayer money for a project many do not want their money going to in the first place. The center will be used and enjoyed at the coliseum as much as anywhere else. As far as the ACC HOC I think downtown would be a preferred site, however I don't see money coming in for it anytime soon for it to be built downtown. Using 2 million from the state the coliseum can be modified to hold the hall and it will still look nice. The conference and city will get the HOC without using lots of taxpayer money. I think the swim center and HOC represent a good compromise between conservative and liberal economics. And of course High Point road is being targeted for redevelopment as well. This will help. The coliseum isn't far at all from downtown. With a few good redevelopment projects along Lee Street the gap between the two can be bridged.