mclawsdrive

I see we have a few guests right now. Its good to see activity pick up lately after a very slow month or two. I confess, I've been rather distracted lately. One of my best friends died suddenly on February 10th, and I've been kind of preocupied dealing with that. Lately, I've been getting back to a 'normal' schedule again and I'll be posting on UP a bit more.

Mary Washington: was M W College, now it's University of M W. Cameron went there too.

I think Roanoke's sphere of influence is larger (in land area) because it is farther away from competition than Richmond or DC. If you look closely, a good 20% of the Roanoke sphere is in West Virginia, and it extends farther southwest, where competition from Johnson city is weak and Knoxville is the first large city. Richmond is really feeling the squeeze from Norfolk, DC and Charlottesville. And notice that the Richmond sphere extends the farthest to the southwest, toward Roanoke. Poor DC is very close to Baltimore, severely reducing its dominance in that direction. Look how large Billings Montana's sphere is, despite its small population, because there's no competition. I think oftentimes people relate to the closest city that provides certain services, especially the city that is the hub for the media market for their area. I wonder how closely this commonCensus project would mirror the media market boundaries of the country? Another factor is uneven participation. Richmond and Norfolk are probably under-represented. Look at Los Angeles, which has fewer participants than San Fransisco, despite being significantly larger.

A Roanoke times article this weekend highlights the Roanoke River Flood Reduction/greenway development project. The accompanying video is nice, although not much is said. article

I went there about a year and a half ago and I agree, it is quite good. I can't remember anything I had, but I remember enjoying it. I would definitely return.

The summit of Mill Mtn is just less than a 3 mile drive from the parkway. Over 2 miles of that drive is on a spur road owned by the Parkway. The entire route is very natural in scenery and feels just like driving on the regular Blue Ridge Parkway. This proposed development is just what Roanoke needs right now and I hope it comes to fruition. There is a faction of citizens who want to prevent any development on the mountain, to keep it 'natural'. That seems odd considering this new development would be built in the cleared grassy area where the old inn was. But I guarantee there will be vocal opposition. Hopefully the majority will see that this could be the shot in the arm Roanoke needs right now.

At a news conference on Wednesday, Valley Forward, a group of young professionals from Roanoke, proposed a new inn/restaurant on top of mill mountain at the site of the old Rockledge Inn. The proposal has the support of a majority of city council members and members of the Fishburn Family, whose ancestor, J.B. Fishburn, donated the mtn. to the city. Article has some renderings of the proposed project. Be sure to click on the photo gallery link, which has more sketches of the project and a photo of the original Rockledge Inn.

I don't have any pics, but here is a link showing the location of Grandin Theater Its about 2 miles from the center of downtown

I think I heard about the Charlottesville Developers about 2 years ago, right when the Miller's Hill project was in it's beginning stages, before any rehab had started. Speaking of the parking lot and the Y. I heard that the city was going to tear down the old Y, which would free up half a square block for development if you include the parking lot on church ave. I think the city should built a 4-5 story parking garage on the entire site, with retail space fronting church ave. It should be designed so that many floors could be added above the garage for office/residential.

Those are great. I love the one of downtown from The corner of Williamson and Shenandoah, next to the Link Museum/visitor's center. I've seen a similar shot of downtown through the trees on Mill Mountain, but yours is better.

It was in the city. It is still snowing here, although judging by the radar, I think it will stop within the next 45 minutes. Yes, 2 murders in the month is below average and would set a good precedent for the rest of the year.

Does my category change from Hamlet to something else when I reach 500 posts? I guess I'll find out as soon as I hit add reply. Oh. I guess not

I went to the Ipanema Cafe once, but they had a sign on the door indicating that their credit card machine was down. We had no cash, so we went to Nile instead.

Speaking of murder, crime (including murder) tends to be much lower during cold and/or snowy weather. Its snowing pretty hard outside right now at the chesterfield courthouse complex.

This is slightly off topic, but one year, Roanoke had 0 murders (I believe the average is somewhere around 10-15). But on New Years Day, just after midnight a man shot and killed 4 people, then himself. Needless to say the next year had a higher murder rate.

I agree, they're great. If you took them at about 1:45 though, it would be packed with people leaving Corned Beef, Cornerstone and all the other bars along that stretch of Campbell.

5th street would be a good place to put in some office/commercial space. I heard a while back that a Charlottesville developer was looking at a vacant lot beside the laundrymat, but I don't know if that fell through or if there is still interest.

The Roanoke Housing Authority is experiencing higher costs than expected in its redevelopment of the 400 block of Day Ave, SW. The authority sold the first few completed houses at prices that were quite higher than expected. They plan to make up for the increased costs by charging more on the remaining houses. Story here

Texas de Brazil sounds cool, but to be fair, I'm going to visit Ipanema first. I still haven't been there.

Sorry Burt, I would have linked that for you yesterday, but for some reason I didn't see your post until just now. Looks like you found it on your own just fine though.

I like this idea a lot. How hard would it be to also include links to discussions of the respective restaurants on this thread, so that the commentary could be kept to a minimum on the restaurant list. I also think it would be best to divide the area into regions. As far as chains, if we include them, we have to figure out a way not to list every McDonalds in the greater Richmond Metro. I've discussed chains such as Maggiano's or Cheesecake factory, but what about 'common' chains such as Applebees or Chili's etc. Perhaps we can include chains on a case by case basis.

I hope its just because of a shift change, or he has temporarily lost his internet access. Cameron, we need your East End perspective.