upzoningisgood

So, I don't think the fact that three sources all quote the 510 figure necessarily carries that much gravitas if they all attended the same press conference. If that 510 number was given at the press conference but is incorrect, all three outlets would report the same incorrect number. Occam's razor suggests that if the company announces on their website that the building is 425 feet and puts out pictures that show it being 425 feet, then the building is probably 425 feet and the press conference included the 510 figure by mistake. I'm not disappointed, though. If they had originally announced the building at 340 feet and it got revised to 425, we would all be ecstatic. I'm not going to base my feelings about this on directionality--at the end of the day, it is probably 425 feet, and that represents a great building that will bring a ton of workers and that's great on its own. I'm happy with that.

In ascending order of boldness 1. Manchester continues to boom. Location of proposed apartments continues to move south along Commerce and east towards the tracks. Two or three are double-digit stories. 2. Lots of new apartments announced in the new TOD zone along Broad. None are above 8 stories 3. New articulated Pulse buses 4. New CoStar building. Where there's smoke there's fire (and yes I saw the relevant thread on that already) 5. RIC expansion announced, plans for more cargo shipping 6. City council officially proposes ban on parking minimums. I'm not confident it would pass, although I hope so. 7. Planning for N-S Pulse line begins. I know there is a bus driver shortage right now, but the new line wouldn't be completed for some time so that's not a factor. 8. Woodland Heights begins transition into Richmond's East Nashville (it'll take awhile, but price appreciation will outpace the city and it will become popular with transplants)

How does that work for real estate tax purposes? Anyone know?

Would this be in Richmond or Henrico? Google Maps seems to have the boundary a couple feet north of Broad and if this project was built it would seem to straddle it.

Expanding the boundaries yields about 1 sq. mile, so 30,000 per sq. mi. That's like the densest part of Charlotte. Anyway, I didn't mean "really high" like in a bad way. A huge downtown would be sick. I meant that seemed like a super high figure to be the critical mass to generate sustainable retail. Like, if you told me you needed a downtown to look like the densest part of America's, what, 7th largest metro to sustain retail, I would tell you you're saying there's almost no viable urban retail in the country. I suppose you could define "viable place for retail" in such a way that it becomes true--if you mean "elite, dense shopping corridor," well, there aren't Magnificent Miles around--but I would say Buckhead, University Park, and Carytown are all viable places for retail in their own, different ways and none of them have densities that high. That being said, I don't know what research your professors had access to, so I'm not saying you or them are necessarily wrong. That 30,000 figure just sort of jumped off the screen.

Question: how do you define downtown? I used your examples of new developments construct a polygon overlaying "downtown and Shockoe bottom" (bounded by Belvidere, Marhsall, the Expressway and 95, and with Shockoe bottom bounded to the north by Broad and east by 21st ) and got an area of .76 square miles. If you need 30000 people in downtown, that would mean a population density of 39,500,000/sq. mile, Essentially, you would need the entire downtown to have a density just short of midtown Atlanta. That seems really, really high. What did I miss?