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Status:
"48 years in MD, 18 in NC"
(set 11 days ago)
Location: Greenville, NC
2,309 posts, read 6,102,582 times
Reputation: 1430
Quote:
Originally Posted by HP91
Yep, the new bridge saves a ton of time. Get to 10th and go west...do it from 14th, Charles, 10th itself
I'm still waiting for Greenville PD to find out how many speeding tickets that they can write by sitting on one side or the other of the bridge, and popping people when they go over the top at 50 MPH.
This looks great. I hope people buy in and the city keeps after it. I love the Emerald drop. I would like to see the "Emerald City" moniker proliferate.
Glad to see there will be facade restrictions for the apartments, and the City is open to partnering on reducing surface parking. On the opposing hand, there doesn’t appear the proposed housing will have a diverse price point, or in other words no affordable housing. Any partnership on the potential garage should include stipulations regarding including affordable units.
I do appreciate the African-American trail that is mentioned at the bottom of the article, and the restructuring of financing for the current city-owned deck. I’m not yet sold on the new park though, as I think we’re completely ignoring the affects of the climate crisis. In the short-term, this park may be a good thing, but in the long-term it’s a waste of money aka not fiscally responsible. I can see an argument that it could bring in revenue to help put more money into the coffers to combat the climate crisis, but we all know that won’t be the case.
I’ve been a long-time advocate for Greenville/ECU being more aggressive on attracting aviation and therefore I welcome this news. I think ECU should also seriously consider an environmental institute that seeks out solutions for the climate crisis. I’ve proposed this a few months ago, and this an official part of my platform, but I believe we should have an industrial policy where ECU innovates in green technologies (including agriculture and food, engineering and design, battery capacity improvements, infrastructure innovation, and so on), PCC is training a workforce to attract companies, and the City of Greenville/Greenville ENC Alliance are advocating for our city.
If we could get our city to a point where ECU is innovating, and we’re locally manufacturing their innovations, then there would be no stopping us.
Status:
"48 years in MD, 18 in NC"
(set 11 days ago)
Location: Greenville, NC
2,309 posts, read 6,102,582 times
Reputation: 1430
Quote:
Originally Posted by BMORE
I’m not yet sold on the new park though, as I think we’re completely ignoring the affects of the climate crisis. In the short-term, this park may be a good thing, but in the long-term it’s a waste of money aka not fiscally responsible.
I can see a true disaster being possible concerning the river. A lot of people don't realize this, but the storm surge from hurricanes is already coming up the Tar River as far as Simpson. Imagine this scenario. There are 2 back to back hurricanes that strike North Carolina a week apart. The first one tracks just to our west and the second one tracks to the east. Rain fall from the first one is heavy, 12 inches and more in spots. The Tar River starts flooding at near record levels. Then the second storm comes along and causes the Tar River to have a record storm surge (if the ocean levels keep rising there will be a lot of new record high storm surges everywhere). Now where is all of that water coming down the Tar River from the Raleigh area supposed to go?
Glad to see there will be facade restrictions for the apartments, and the City is open to partnering on reducing surface parking. On the opposing hand, there doesn’t appear the proposed housing will have a diverse price point, or in other words no affordable housing. Any partnership on the potential garage should include stipulations regarding including affordable units.
I do appreciate the African-American trail that is mentioned at the bottom of the article, and the restructuring of financing for the current city-owned deck. I’m not yet sold on the new park though, as I think we’re completely ignoring the affects of the climate crisis. In the short-term, this park may be a good thing, but in the long-term it’s a waste of money aka not fiscally responsible. I can see an argument that it could bring in revenue to help put more money into the coffers to combat the climate crisis, but we all know that won’t be the case.
So the explanation for both the affordable housing issue and the surface lot issue is that the City asked them to do market rent housing instead of student housing. Good perspective from the side of the developer as to why student housing is profitable with parking decks, etc...and that rents would have to be raised if you added parking decks.
So if the City wants market rent on the imperial site AND affordable housing AND a parking deck, they need to contribute. Considering the project is delivering on so many other items and a parking deck is increasingly needed in the Dickinson area, it just makes sense for the City to build it and the developer to lease some spots for both the hotel and the apartments. And then some levels are for the general public to pay for. And if the City is forward thinking enough it is trying to get an office building in place on the site to really create density. There is no need for 3 separate parking decks, just 1 big one to cover the entirety of the Imperial development and Dickinson corridor. Not sure why the city isn't doing this from the start...unless the elected officials are just too scared to spend money on it even though its investment in the downtown.
Lots of other people have invested in the Dickinson corridor...it would seem very reasonable for the City to do so as well.
RE: The African American trail and The Roxy Theather, does this mean it is slated for renovation already? I have not heard anything about it. I've stated here many times, I do hope the city connects Uptown across the tracks to Albemarle.
I love the Aviation institute and I think we'll look back on Jay Golden as an all time influence-r in ECU history. He is everywhere, pushing the research and partnership envelope. We need to keep this man and empower him to continue the surge.
And I also concur that the city needs to pony up for the parking deck. Don't try to cheap it Greenville. Do it right.
So the explanation for both the affordable housing issue and the surface lot issue is that the City asked them to do market rent housing instead of student housing. Good perspective from the side of the developer as to why student housing is profitable with parking decks, etc...and that rents would have to be raised if you added parking decks.
So if the City wants market rent on the imperial site AND affordable housing AND a parking deck, they need to contribute. Considering the project is delivering on so many other items and a parking deck is increasingly needed in the Dickinson area, it just makes sense for the City to build it and the developer to lease some spots for both the hotel and the apartments. And then some levels are for the general public to pay for. And if the City is forward thinking enough it is trying to get an office building in place on the site to really create density. There is no need for 3 separate parking decks, just 1 big one to cover the entirety of the Imperial development and Dickinson corridor. Not sure why the city isn't doing this from the start...unless the elected officials are just too scared to spend money on it even though its investment in the downtown.
Lots of other people have invested in the Dickinson corridor...it would seem very reasonable for the City to do so as well.
I believe we should abandon the idea that we must always be fiscally conservative, and acknowledge that we have more capacity to take on projects. Unfortunately, and this isn’t an attack on P.J., but he understands that the private sector will not build affordable housing at the rate it’s needed, and yet he won’t commit any tax dollars towards the effort. There should be minimal debate in City Council regarding rather to commit to a garage, as the potential benefits outweigh any immediate costs. If we’re modeling ourselves after Greenville, SC, we have to understand that they are extremely robust in PPP’s, almost always paying for the garage, the public plaza, and taking on ambitious projects (large city park, new downtown convention center + two museums, an expansion in the works for their Performing Arts Center, five new pedestrian bridges planned, etc).
Speaking of the performing arts center, I do hope we present something ambitious but I have a fear it’ll look like the new ECU student center. That isn’t to say the new student center is unappealing, but it’s not a daring project from an architectural standpoint. I want to see steel and glass, or maybe even something that looks Art Deco but, again, I expect far less ambitious because leaders think the public are as a fiscally conservative as they are. As I run for Mayor, many are down referendums to finance projects across our city but you wouldn’t guess that from listening to city council.
So let’s build a garage, put up money towards affordable housing if we have to (but Vidant should make a large contribution to the effort also), be daring with the performing arts center, advocate for new school buildings, scout for land for a consolidated government complex near uptown, etc. That isn’t to say build it all at once, I understand we don’t have that level of capacity as a city/county, but let’s start getting these projects in order. Show us what our money could do. And let’s hope we have a Democrat elected as President that has a strong infrastructure plan in place, we could use those federal dollars.
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