mclawsdrive

New $20 million (+/-) plan for Center in the Square unveiled yesterday. Building would not expand beyond it's current footprint, but would expand exhibit space by shuffling some things around a bit. The historic facade of the building would be restored. story

Good call, VaGuy. I'd like to see it in either the Elliston Area or maybe Franklin County near the proposed I73. Although closer to Martinsville would certainly help the economy there.

Live Search Maps now has Bird's Eye views of the entire city of Roanoke and many nearby areas. Go to this link and zoom in on an area of interest . Then click on Bird's eye. live search - roanoke

Hillary will be at my alma mater, Patrick Henry High School in Roanoke, Sunday and then Obama will be somewhere in Roanoke Monday (probably the Roanoke Civic Center). I've also heard about a Clinton appearance in Manassas and Richmond, and an Obama rally in VA Beach. I'm sure both candidates will be appearing at least once in Hampton Roads. I wouldn't be suprised if both of them made at least 7 appearances each in VA over the next 3 days.

Burt, I sincerely hope that you will continue posting here as much as possible. You are extremely prolific in both the quantity and quality of news, insight and discussion you bring to Urban Planet. Some recent news: My father and I recently had lunch with Chip Jones, who worked with my father for years at the Roanoke Times. Chip left the Times Dispatch a few months ago and is now editor-in-chief of new media at the Bergman Group. He is also writing what will surely be a fascinating book about Iraq, based largely on the months he spent there with U.S military and Sunni sheiks. Be sure to check out "Red, White or Yellow? The military and media at war in Iraq", due out in September by Stackpole books.

The Camel was a mixed bag. It

This wouldn't be funny if it was anyone else. Maybe you could sell them for a slight discount at work or on craiglist. I'm sure plenty of people would be interested in some gift cards at 10% less than face value.

Chesterfield still doesn't have its GIS online. In the county's defense, they got on GIS, like many large localities, before many smaller counties and cities did. That meant that they had a whole lot of money and effort invested before it was practical to have an online GIS. Smaller localities found it easier to start from scratch with a GIS that would be available on the internet. Also in Chesterfield, there are still server and security issues being worked out. On a completely different topic, I went to Delux Saturday night and it was unpleasantly slammed at midnight. While waiting in line for the bathroom, a girl (probably from the West End, ) told her friend over her cell phone that she was at Delux in Carytown. When did Carytown annex eastward 5 blocks?

The larger the footprint for the garage, the more spaces you can get as a ratio of square footage. For example, the new Carilion Clinic parking garage in Roanoke will have 1500 spaces in a 450,000 sf building. It pushes the density to 3.33 spaces per 1k sqfeet. This is because the floors are larger, so a higher ratio of each floor is dedicated to parking instead of ramps. Each floor of the Carilion Clinic garage is 64,000 ft including ramps. My point is that garages with bigger footprints are more economical, and thats what Centenial's developers should be aiming for, if possible. BTW - What is the largest parking garage in the Richmond area?

Roanoke's murder rate lowest in at least 4 decades! Only 4 homicides in 2007. Just thought Richmond shouldn't get all the glory for their total of 55. Roanoke would have to have over 25 murders to have the same 'low' rate Richmonders are celebrating. So how bad is violent crime in Roanoke? Not bad at all, I'd say. story One thing to ponder, the total doesn't reflect death by cop. I'm pretty sure 3 people were killed this year by Roanoke city police.

Seaboard Coast Line is simply the name on the deed, so I'm assuming that these are original deeds and that CSX now owns them. I would guess that the segments owned by Chesterfield and Colonial Heights were obtained for creating buffers or possibly for future road use in Chesterfield's case. I definitely think it could be (relatively) easy to convince Chesterfield county to expand the Chester Linear park as far as the county owns the line. Beyond that would require some more initiative. A multi-jurisdictional trail connecting Chester to Colonial Heights and VSU would be a very nice amenity. Maybe a chat with someone at Chesterfield Parks and Rec would help, because whoever established the Chester Linear Park should have a pretty good grasp on what would be needed to create this trail.

Did you once travel on that stretch of NS track, Burt? High railroad trestles are impressive. The Virginia Creeper Trail between Whitetop Station and Abingdon is an old rail line with some very high trestles. I wonder why we don't just call them bridges?

I

Decor: There were several very large colorful (oil?) paintings spanning the entire right wall. Recessed hallogen lights and other directional lights accented the attractive elements of the space. There were booths and free tables, I seem to remember seeing a bit of red upholstry (red is usually a good color in a dining area). It was a mixture of cozy and intimate but yet still open and glamourous. I'd call the place swanky, not overwhelmingly so, but the place definitely stands out in the fan. I didn't get to go upstairs, but it sure looked interesting up there, with a colorful ceiling fixture others have mentioned. By the way, I finally went to Can Can last Sunday for brunch and absolutly loved it.