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The 7 train stops right at the stadium, and runs express from Midtown - doesn't get much better than that for rail access. No less convenient than the BSL Pattison stop, for example. A little further ride than to Yankees Stadium (depending on where you're coming from), but you can't hold NYC being a big city against the Mets. Especially when there's so much other better stuff to hold against them.
And there is a LIRR train stop at Citi Field which you can catch right from Penn Station.
Pittsburgh's North Shore Connector will connect the Golden Triange with the North Shore starting in 2012. The new line tunneled under the Allegheny river to connect Gateway Center with PNC Park, Heinz Field, Rivers Casino, and the other North Shore attractions. The new stations are located @ PNC Park and the Heinz Field station is connected directly to the stadium.
With a lot of people poo poo'ing the NEC....Little do they realize once its finished the North Shore growth with explode in a short amount of time.
btw PNC on game day...It really doesn't need rail access..
.You look at Cleveland, Houston, St Louis, Seattle, Baltimore, St Pete, Phoenix etc and you just don’t see a lot of eco development around the parks even after years (or even decades) of the parks being downtown.
In terms of Cleveland this statement is 100% false. The downtown baseball stadium (along with the basketball arena built at the same time) in Cleveland totally revitalized a wasteland portion of downtown. The construction of the baseball stadium was followed by new hotels, apartments, and a new dining and nightlife district that is now patronized even when no game is going on.
Quote:
Originally Posted by kidphilly
Also how many stadiums have good rail access?
Off the top of my head Yankees, Red Sox, Phillies, Nationals, Cubs (not sure on White Sox)
To a lessor extent Baltimore (but light rail), Atlanta (MARTA is far and limited to very select areas for connectivity), SF (street car only)
There is a rail stop located a few of blocks from the ballpark in Cleveland as well.
I read an article on this. It has to do with the streetfronts in the area. Most buildings either have a solid wall or a parking garage facing the street fronts in that area. Since there is noting to go into, there is no reason for people to be there and thus no reason for activity.
would you go around looking at walls or cars???
They suggested street level stores and restaurants to increase activity. Otherwise people would drive to the park, catch a game and just drive home.
They also said that the only thing that spurred activity in the area was the park.
Sucks....
I go to Minute Maid sometimes and (as an architect major and BIG fan of urban-living) I hate seeing more parking spaces facing the park than buildings. There's even that old hotel there that's just a huge eyesore.
So far in my experience the ballparks in Cleveland, Minneapolis, Chicago (Wrigley Field only), Baltimore, Denver, and San Diego seemed to have contributed to the vibrancy in the surrounding neighborhoods.
The Wrigley Field situation is a symbiotic relationship, and if anything you may have the cart before the horse. The area around it is one of the city's busiest nightlife districts (if not actually the busiest) even during the off-season, and the seamless integration of the stadium itself into the surrounding built environment (rather than being offset by acres of parking lots) has made Wrigley Field itself part of the entertainment/nightlife scene. The Cubs didn't start selling 30,000+ tickets per game regardless of the team's suckage until Wrigleyville became a yuppie playground. The stadium itself is indeed part of the attraction, but the neighborhood makes Wrigley Field an attraction at least as much as Wrigley Field makes the neighborhood an attraction. In fact the nightlife in the area is so much an attraction in its own right that the Cubs are not allowed by ordinance to play night games on Friday and Saturday nights, because it's nigh impossible to manage the volume of people and traffic for both the games and the surrounding nightlife at the same time.
Quote:
Originally Posted by kidphilly
Also how many stadiums have good rail access?
Off the top of my head Yankees, Red Sox, Phillies, Nationals, Cubs (not sure on White Sox)
White Sox too -- served by the same line that serves Wrigley. When they play each other it's referred to by some as the Red Line Series.
I wouldn't be surprised to see some of the office towers in the second rendering converted to apartment buildings as the market for apartments is hot in Seattle right now. I read an article about how something like 90 percent of the apartments under construction in the entire Seattle area are in Seattle itself. The renderings show King Street Station where Sounder commuter rail runs from. The commuter rail is rush hour only, although special trains are run for Seahawk games, not sure about Mariner games. An arrow also points to the entrance to the International District Station in the bus tunnel where Seattle's light rail, and several bus routes run.
Quote:
Originally Posted by kcmo
You look at Cleveland, Houston, St Louis, Seattle, Baltimore, St Pete, Phoenix etc and you just don’t see a lot of eco development around the parks even after years (or even decades) of the parks being downtown.
Can't speak for the rest but in Seattle the stadiums are surrounded by water on the West side, an industrial zone on the South side, Pioneer Square, which is the closest Seattle has to a historical district, on the North Side, and the International District on the East side. There aren't exactly large tracts of undeveloped land surrounding the stadiums save for the North Lot.
Last edited by jaboyd1; 08-08-2011 at 05:52 PM..
Reason: added info
This is completely ridiculous, inaccurate, incorrect and a likely a purposeful misrepresentation of facts.
Great American Ball Park has spurred the development of an entirely new downtown neighborhood known as The Banks, which this summer is starting to open its doors. The first tenant to open - The Holy Grail - is absolutely smam-packed before and after every Reds game and has already announced expansion plans, and a slate of new-to-the-region tenants are slated to open this fall. Prior to the new ballpark, the Cincinnati riverfront was a mostly empty, ignored stretch of parking lots, produce warehouses and criss-crossing train tracks. In its place are now hundreds of new residential units that sold out long before they were move-in ready, new restaurants/bars/stores that are lining up to open later this year, and a series of completely new urban parks that are already winning awards and a new hotel development. Honestly, if this isn't development spurred by the ballpark, I don't know what is:
This is completely ridiculous, inaccurate, incorrect and a likely a purposeful misrepresentation of facts.
Great American Ball Park has spurred the development of an entirely new downtown neighborhood known as The Banks, which this summer is starting to open its doors. The first tenant to open - The Holy Grail - is absolutely smam-packed before and after every Reds game and has already announced expansion plans, and a slate of new-to-the-region tenants are slated to open this fall. Prior to the new ballpark, the Cincinnati riverfront was a mostly empty, ignored stretch of parking lots, produce warehouses and criss-crossing train tracks. In its place are now hundreds of new residential units that sold out long before they were move-in ready, new restaurants/bars/stores that are lining up to open later this year, and a series of completely new urban parks that are already winning awards and a new hotel development. Honestly, if this isn't development spurred by the ballpark, I don't know what is:
That's impressive. However, the average business in the US doesn't last five years. To conclude that this is successful development spurred by the ballpark we'll have to see how successful these new business are after they've been open for a couple of years. If the majority of them are still open and doing well, then this would be quite an achievement.
People will say Denver and San Diego and San Francisco have growing gentrifying urban neighborhoods around them, but those areas (LoDo, Gaslight etc) were flourishing before the ballparks went in.
True, but I think they made these more vibrant and attracted development that might not have otherwise occurred had these ballparks not been built, at least with SF and SD. I don't think the area around AT&T would have taken off as much as it has without that park. Downtown SD was already improving but the ballpark definitely helped, I def don't think some developments would have occurred if Petco wasn't there.
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