GR_Urbanist

The new building on the old Tatum site is really moving along! 2nd floor is already going up. You can really feel the presence this one is going to have on the street. Update: photo

I wonder if this will include some development on the lot/underground garage to the north. 140 units that can potentially see 280+ people moving in will have to accommodate them + existing 5/3rd workers, one would think!

They still exhibit the mentality of this being an office park. The city was (IMO) generously reckless enough to break the street grid by vacating part of Bond so these people can have a private drive for their "campus". If they want to give part of Fairbanks a stupid name like that, then they can purchase that segment of the street from the taxpayers and then they can call it whatever they want. They can also be responsible for the upkeep of that area, which includes street repairs and snow removal. What hubris to even float such a thing! They just got to the area, they have made a hash of N. Monroe with their parking lot plans, alienated neighbors, and then to want the city to shove a corporate name onto one of the streets? We don't even have an Amway St., not to mention a DeVos Place, VanAndel Arena, Ford Museum, or Meijer(s) avenue!

Something I was not expecting on the corner of 54th and S. Division. Kum & Go actually built a gas station......that has the store portion built at the street! It actually fronts an actual sidewalk! With I think a door that functions as an actual entrance, next to a BRT stop?! Now, my family lived just south of here back in the 80s, so I still reflexively see the area as the fring of civilization with suburban elements meeting farmland. Obviously being more developed, it just always still just looked suburban. But this just blew my mind. Like seeing a cruise ship on the Grand River. I wish all gas stations oriented themselves like this! Or maybe I'm just eaisly impressed. Could be.

I hope so. Not a fan on the whole over-reliance on food trucks to make spaces "active". I see them as great food options that have become a lazy urban placemaking fad. This new plan is absolute gold! EXACTLY what that part of Bridge needs that will help support all of the existing small businesses as well as Bride St. Market. I'm, usually not this curt, but those people are rubes. I'm just beyond done with the boilerplate empty whining about traffic, parking, or how the apartments arent in the nebulous range of "affordable" that isnt defined with an actual number that would ever be able to work with the actual cost of developing. These developers are putting apartments on what is an empty former grocery that no one on the west side has put forward any money into developing into the brand new, and at the same time ultra-cheap, apartments that they think a developer can just make happen. The Bridge Street Meijer project also had this same chorus, and thankfully the city stopped taking these people seriously.

One of those stories with lots of hopeful talk, but the reality seems to show that Rivertown as it is now may be heading in the direction of Roger's Plaza. But with lots of disrepair, and a "trampoline park" looking to take over space from an anchor store, you are not a mall that is on the upswing. A pity for Grandville because they copied a large part of the same mistakes Wyoming made with Roger's Plaza with building a "retail corridor" around a single shopping mall, and not thinking that it could ever decline. Not that Rivertown Pky. is nearly in the same position 28th street in Wyoming was, but a failing mall far bigger than Roger's Plaza is not going to be a good look. Personally, I dont think it is worth saving, and should be demolished before the sunk cost, trying to rehab it, just makes it look even more slipshod and sad. With the major tenants being a Secretary of State or a Dollar General. But hey, Woodland did what people thought was the impossible. So who knows!

They seriously still don't get it. Plazas (real ones) are successful because they are places that are on the way to somewhere and are on the way from somewhere. Calder Plaza isnt midway between anywhere. People also dont go there because there is nothing to see. When I see stuff like: "...adding gathering spaces including a pavilion, and programming opportunities to activate the space more throughout the year", It is a massive red flag that the whole plan is to pepper the place with gimmicks in hopes that people will "gather" there. Sure, during the various festivals that take place there, people are there, but you cant have a festival every day, and without those, people simply arent going to show up. If they really want Calder Plaza to ever work, they need to: A: Do something with that 50 year old parking lot to the south B: The Ford Federal building will either need a ground floor along Calder Plaza that actually has public use, or that whole relic of a building needs to move, and that land used for something with a housing, office, and retail component. C. Ottawa Ave needs reworking so it isn't a multi-lane one-way deacceleration street for cars coasting off the highway. I just see this as really making it look more fresher, but not making it useful.

That's so amazing that It took me a few minutes to figure out where this was! I would never have guess this used to be the old Service Repo and that patio was built on what was once a steep incline down to a basement entrance.

I'd rather have ten 4 story infill buildings that keep people and activity close to the street, and expands DT's footprint than one 40 story tower to one company's ego that is really just good to gawk at.

Lee&Birch looks to have thankfully landed a spot close to the original location. Good for them. Would have been an unfortunate loss if they didnt. Oh, and looks like next door, the old Elk Brewery space is getting a place called the Grey Rabbit!

It's fine and all. At least it isn't like the generic stadiums we have out there. Not a fan of the Mt. Vernon/Pearl corner. Rather see that built-out and not grass, though. That intersection has been a bit too car focused, and makes it a pain for pedestrians, and that look just looks like a setback from the street instead of an integration up to it. Also dont like the Mt. Vernon facing side. It looks like it is going to be blank wall or slot windows with shield trees, further cementing it as just a off/on ramp speed-through with no street presence. But that 's just me.

I recall back in the early 2000s, with regards to north Monroe, One of the city commissioners was afraid of that area becoming filled with "concrete canyons" without these height restrictions. Didn't make sense then, and still makes no sense. If only we had that issue because of all of the development we were apparently expecting to be raining on us. Right now we seem to have a height restriction of about the thickness of parking lot asphalt in too many places.

The new building for the old Tatum site is starting to sprout this week.

Sport Simulator City USA is the new Beer City USA?

The desire to turn John Ball Park into a historical district were quickly shot down by the city commission. I'm honestly at the point where maybe the zoo needs to leave the area. It is totally at the mercy of a neighborhood that dont want it to expand, dont want to accommodate the visitors, and at the same time will fight to keep it there. No one really is thrilled with the idea of it not being in such an accessible location that so many of us have memories of visiting for decades, but the neighborhood is sort of not "getting it" that something has to give. They cant just have it both ways forever.