blackstone
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Posts posted by blackstone
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It looks like Tim Stewart really wants to convince folks that both can be done. I'm not sold that the route the train would have to take if the busway gets built makes a whole lot of sense but if we are stuck with the busway I think that Tim Stewart and Tim O'Brien need to take the lead in determining such a route's feasibility.
NEW BRITAIN — Advocates of the proposed busway between New Britain and Hartford argue there’s no reason that the $573 million project they hope to build soon can’t co-exist with a commuter rail service.
“We could do both,” said New Britain Mayor Tim Stewart.
“We’re trying to shoot for them both,” said state Rep. Tim O’Brien, a New Britain Democrat.
This idea is brain dead. Not surprising in this state. Get the commuter line going new haven to hartford. now. I hear there is a railroad shuttle service from hartford to springfield. wow. what the F about the rest of us? Give new britain and newington a stop on the raii commuter line (I believe the tracks go through both). and provide plainville, southington, west hartfdord, farmington, avon, simsbury, rocky hill, cromwell, glastonbury, etc. buses running every ten minutes 6 to 8:30am and 3 to 6pm. and make them non-stop. forget town to town to town. who wants to take 30 minutes on a bus to traverse 10 miles?. We already have roads. we don't need another one and if people will use the buses, the highways will be much less used so again, why build more. The mayor of new britain is only interested in making his town a hub.
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The key word there is improving rail service that links Hartford with the main BosWash route. The federal component is not for the commuter rail, it's for the upgrade to high speed rail. The commuter rail is just trying to piggyback on the improved infrastructure that upgrading the line will bring. So there are essentially two seperate projects that we are discussing along the rail line. The commuter rail and the high speed inter-city rail.
thanks for the clarification. on the commuter line side of things, it boggles my mind that there is waterbury to bridgeport metro north service, but not hartford to new haven; but then, it always has.
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improving rail service linking Hartford and Springfield with Amtrak's main Boston-to-Washington route. i've never thought that this was a major reason for the project. it's supposed to be a commuter line (like metro north), no? we already are on an amtrak line.
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Honestly, if this is what we get it will be better than having a hole in the ground across from the CCC, CSC and Marriott. If we get quality retailers and restaurateurs, I will be OK with it. I guess I've made my peace with it and hopefully phase two actually gets builts and brings residents to the area. Hartford is not meant to fall or stand based on Front Street and it won't. Front Street can and hopefully still will prove to be a net positive for the city and if we can get some activity across from the Hotel and Convention Center that will be great. There are a lot of employees in this part of Downtown and I think that it can be more successful than anticipated. Hopefully that will provide an impetus to get going on phase two and maybe the housing will be an easier sell since it will be hopefully being added to a successful shopping/entertainment area.
well, i think you know that i couldn't agree more with you.
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They call them live/work townhomes
here is the web site.
http://www.marketcommontownhomes.com/
this obviously lends itself better to warmer climates, but I love how this common sense style of development is coming back.
it takes something like Blue Back one step further.
mind you this specific project is much larger than Blue back and more spread out, but the concept is sound in my opinon. I mean even if you were to only include 10 such spaces into a blue back sized development you would get a great local flavor to the project. Also if the owner wants they can lease to a national chain, or rent out the residential unit.
http://www.marketcommontownhomes.com/infor....asp?TopicID=35
actually, it reminds me of south portland, me
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Blackstone,
115 units does not mean much on its own, but as time goes on and developments happen each 115 unit development meshes with the next to create the kind of vibrancy you speak of. Do driving walk to everything living. single story just does not work. its BS.
I would live at front street if there was a residential building with river views and a nice assortment of retail/entertainment below me. This is the urban ideal. who wouldnt want a sweet view and all the ammenitied needed right below you. and an extremely short walk to Work, Bushnell park, the riverfront park, the Wadsworth, and the Library. An added bonus would be the easy access to the Highways that this site provides for when I want to get out of town.
if these 115 are built you also dont have a throw away building that 20 million of our tax dollars went to build.
ok, voice. i hear you. if i worked downtown, that would be different. the hbj said on 10/02 that the site was going to be a 150k sq ft retail and residential project, with 60k for retail and the rest for residential. the article yesterday says it is a 30 million dollar (20/10) retail/entertainment project. i think that is misleading. i don't believe that nitkin is getting 20 mill just to develop one-story retail buildings. the site did not somehow grow larger. can anyone clarify.
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can't see where 115 units of housing means much. the idea of towers is dead. 230 people are not going to make retailers flock to the site. there is a solid base of nearby office workers, conventioneers, and science center visitors to interest retailers. why would anyone want to live in this district. other than the wadsworth, science center, or riverfront, to get to anything you have to walk blocks through nothing. if i'm living in the city, i want to forget about my car. the idea of this retail area is unique. it can be the largest entertainment district in the state and will have a captured audience. gottesdiener has failed with retail. what does nyberg know about retail? nitkin's business has been mostly strip malls, so he might know more about retail than the other developers. i'm an optimist. if you guys want to complain about the situation, i don't blame you. but i'm going to watch and see what nitkin does. where is that engineering guy who says his company is doing something at constitution plaza? i'd like to hear his take.
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i have said in the past here that i don't think housing is important for front street. it might seem that living in an area overrun with drunken partiers from the suburbs and the convention center is desirable. but not to me. i'd rather live around the park and walk over to front street. hartford needs more retail and some different entertainment venues and i was hoping all of this could be at front street. if just that could go up and be successful, i would be happy. maybe it is time for more retail downtown before more will come to live there. with so many empty lots, there is plenty of room elsewhere for housing downtown.
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I disagree. In my opinion, residential is the absolute key to any sort of retail success downtown. The 115 apartments were satisfactory only because we were promised a phase two, which hopefully was to include far more residential. Otherwise while Front Street may have some initial success, it will be due to novelty and won't bring suburbanites downtown in the long run. In addition, no amount of retail will be able to exclusively survive off of the convention crowd - it's just too sporadic.
i think that the entertainment and retail component of the front street project will draw suburbanites. if it does not, then why build it. it must certainly offer a little more than the union place/allyn street intersection. it should absolutely offer more than west hartford where perching on a bar stool or table, eating and drinking is all that is there for entertainment. front street should blow that away as an entertainment hub. front street should be unique to the region, never mind the city. i expect that the science center will draw hundreds and maybe a thousand people a day. this thing is going to be a big deal. the science center is unique to the state and beyond. and it has been my impression that the convention center does more than a sporadic business. the atheneum is there as well. the front street entertainment should be focused on drawing the people who are there for these existing attractions and making it fun for everyone; noon to 2am. there should definitely be more than a thousand people a day at adrian's landing for the attractions. suburbia will come for venues that offer more than their towns do. the housing would be great, but it does not have to be right there.
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BlueBack Square has residential, and it's doing just fine, I'm not seeing your point.
my point is that the residential part of front street is not that important. the retail and entertainment is. a modest amount of residential would be fine, but even if i thought tower apartments were important, i think the site is too small for all that was once planned; just like the area where the convention center, marriott, and science center are was too small for a football stadium. and comparing blueback square with front street is apples and oranges. adding on to west hartford center, where residential and retail already thrive is not the same as building something where there are/were parking lots.
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taking the housing out of the equation makes it the right size for an entertainment area. i did not want to see apartment towers in there and without towers it was always too small for housing and retail. it should be looked at as being built first for people at the convention center, the marriott, and the science center. there will be lots of other people visiting as well.
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I could see potential in this site. I think the key would be to shift the arena to the north and then extend Allyn Street to Trumbull.
Closing Church Street without re-opening Allyn Street would be a mistake.
This Aerial View shows that the appendage of the Church Street garage block should accomodate a larger arena while still allowing Allyn Street to run through.
what an extraordinary amount of surface parking. though i have driven and walked everywhere in the CBD, the reality of this satellite map is a revelation. what percentage of surface parking does gottesdiener own (ballpark) of these open areas? hopefully, he is the right developer to be controlling this space.
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80% is actually not that great. esp when those figures likely include non-revenue passengers (airline employees etc) who likely flocked to this flight as it was their only way overseas in the busy summertime travel. The problem is that after August/sept demand and yeild literally falls off a cliff with yeilds (fares) being 25-50% less in the off season and demand also being lighter, i believe NE was hoping for stronger peak month performance, despite it being the first month of the flight ( i had wondered why they started it so late myself).
I believe the flight can be sucessful in the summer time, but seeing the #'s if august is not a significant improvement I dont think the flight will be running Nov-march at the least. Though another option to keep service year round would be to run on a reduced freequency (4-5x/ week rather than daily) We shall see.
whats a signifigant improvement for those vacant 29 seats per flight? i think its way knee jerk and without merit to start predicting off of one month's statistics.
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when did wikipedia become a trusted source?
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It's a bad practice. Northland bought the Metrocenter in 1997; i know that. I am familiar with Northland's portfolio. People should see how Northland treats it's tenants and their properties. Maybe if some of you got out of your SUVs for a second and not just looking at the skyline from the interstate; people would know better.
well, you are the guy saying that smart people in hartford have no choice but to leave as the urban revatilization started by rowland has failed. i hope your future posts will not be dedicated to trying to prove this. why bother? only time will tell. things change.
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No offense, but unless I'm mistaken, these boards are for open, honest discussion about cities and their issues. They are not fan sites or booster clubs. If he thinks it's a failure, let him post his opinion, then if you think he's wrong, you can blow his thinking out of the water.
he hasn't the slightest information regarding how the hartford21 is doing. he has no worthwhile reason to think anything about this building's success, failure or any other status. and by the way, your writing has improved dramatically all of a sudden.
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Blackstone,
Cars are an important part of any urban environment. Short term street parking, say a half-an-hour max, really helps businesses. The survival of the street level businesses is vital to this development. Eliminating cars would seriously hurt the retail component.
Speeding traffic will not be an issue. This street is not a cut though to anywhere. It dead ends on both sides after two blocks. This will be a low speed, pedestrian heavy area. It is strikingly similar to LaSalle Road in West Hartford Center. There is no problem with the car/pedestrian mix there. Front Street would do well to duplicate its success.
And forget Columbus Avenue becoming a pedestrian walkway, it won't happen.
if you are right about columbus not being more for pedestrians than what it is now, its a real lost opportunity for everyone involved with adriaen's landing. from builders to visitors. maybe i just don't understand the types of business that are going to be on front street. i see the area as the most densely populated on any day of the week in hartford because of the atheneum, science center, convention center, office towers, and housing. and yet 40 cars parking and leaving are important. is this place going to have convenience stores, drug chains, and takeout? and forget west hartford already. think bigger than that. there is no reason, other than to eat, to visit west hartford. think city.
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Thanks editor, much appreciated.
The street parking is probably important for the retail component. It reminds me of the diagonal parking in West Hartford center. And that seems to work pretty well. If the speed limit is low and the traffic is broken by wide crosswalks, it should keep the area lively. Cars are not the enemy.
The most important part of the project will be its quality.
cars are the enemy. the rendering shows street parking for 30 to 40 cars. this parking is irrelevant to business. having a street here will not make it a destination. cars speeding through this short street as a cut through is not going to create a retail atmosphere.. the layout is just too small for a street used by cars here. are people going to have to walk up to prospect or down to columbus to cross the street or dodge cars parking, coming, and going? or will some point in between be all mucked up with stop signs and traffic lights. there are lots of off street parking areas surrounding this location. without cars on this front street, the potential is spectacular. and if you have the hooks for people, they will come. if you don't they won't. also, somehow, columbus has to become a boulevard for people, not just cars. It would be really nice if science center people wouldn't mind walking down columbus to front street. if they have to get in their cars when leaving the science center, they are leaving town.
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i not sure if there should be cars or car parking on this street. where they have cars might be better used for kiosks, street vendors, and maybe other nuances for pedestrians. actually i feel strongly about it, but will wait before commenting. also, i want to see what arch street might look like.
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Oh wow, kind of mis leading. That project looks amazing and would look great at Front st.
i'm interested in seeing how many people want to live in an entertainment district and more importantly, what the demographics of the tenants will be age-wise
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I'm actually quite shocked at how much I like most of Stern's designs, considering I despise a huge portion of modern architecture. If he can deliver a design that is up to par with most of his work, I will be estatic.
By the way, for those of you who haven't seen the sketch in the HBJ yet, you aren't really missing anything. Its a single blurry image that has almost no detail and doesn't really indicate anything.
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I think that currently many people drive or take shuttles to Kennedy, Newark and to a lesser extent Logan. Flying one-stop from Hartford is often $200 or more roundtrip (on economy) leading many people to simply drive.
I think if the price is right, many will choose to take Northwest to Amsterdam. Schipol is one of the best airports in Europe for transferring flights and KLM along with Transavia can connect passengers to cities all over Europe, Africa and Asia. However, I think Northwest is targetting business passengers since they will now be able to reach destinations in Africa and Asia with two flights instead of three.
If Northwest happens to fill up most of the 22 seats in first and only a few seats in coach it will make money due to being a high-yield route. Also, cargo is an important source of revenue for airlines, so we'll have to see how that does.
i think that the demand will excede expectations. i know people in norwalk, newtown, and danbury that would rather fly out of bradley than the greater nyc airports. i am guessing that many people from wor/auburn west would rather fly out of bradley than logan. there is a lot of population west of auburn and east of norwalk. we shall see.
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I think that currently many people drive or take shuttles to Kennedy, Newark and to a lesser extent Logan. Flying one-stop from Hartford is often $200 or more roundtrip (on economy) leading many people to simply drive.
I think if the price is right, many will choose to take Northwest to Amsterdam. Schipol is one of the best airports in Europe for transferring flights and KLM along with Transavia can connect passengers to cities all over Europe, Africa and Asia. However, I think Northwest is targetting business passengers since they will now be able to reach destinations in Africa and Asia with two flights instead of three.
If Northwest happens to fill up most of the 22 seats in first and only a few seats in coach it will make money due to being a high-yield route. Also, cargo is an important source of revenue for airlines, so we'll have to see how that does.
IN PROGRESS: Hartford-New Britain Busway/ CTFastrak
in Greater Hartford
Posted · Edited by blackstone
as someone born in fairfield county, and after leaving 27 years ago has worked half of those years in fairfield county, let me assure you that most people from fairfield county know more about westchester county than about hartford county or any other county in connecticut. my point? dont be surprised or offended by their "out of touch" ways. their focus is definitely on themselves and to the west, more now than when i lived there, and they feel like the state's focus for funding projects is decidedly on hartford county. ned is not immune to the county's beliefs. and check this out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ned_Lamont