Greenville Area Developments (Greensboro, Winterville, Wendell: autistic, power lines, new home)
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Awesome news! I said a while ago that a burger bar would do well in that area. Glad to see someone open it up. It doesn't say exactly where it will be on Dickinson Ave..I was in that area this past weekend and didn't see any signs for it.
The city’s contract with Kimley-Horn to perform a student housing market survey began on Tuesday night with a public input session to start learning what residents want to see in such developments.
About 50 residents, a mix of students and established residents, attended the open meeting on the third floor of City Hall. They offered their preferences on appearance and designs, prioritized amenities and expectations for developments and provided general comments on the student housing market.
The session was part of the study’s effort to help gauge the demand aspects of the survey’s goal of determining supply and demand for student housing, said Jessica Rossi, one of the planners with Kimbley Horn. The firm also will complete an inventory of student housing and current occupancy rates.
Kimley-Horn, a national planning and design firm, was hired in September to address concerns that an increase in the number of such developments was saturating the market, causing older developments to decline and affect adjacent property values. The City Council allowed a maximum expenditure of $20,000 for the study in June.
Participants visited three stations. The first asked them to vote on their preferred appearance of apartment buildings, selecting from among 20 images of diverse development types.
Though the final data was not available, the preference seemed to be for a mixed-use urban apartment complex, close to a street with sidewalks and bike lanes and harboring businesses below. The development was similar to The Boundary complex on Cotanche Street downtown.
The second station asked residents to fill in a pyramid to identify their housing priorities. They chose among affordability, connectivity, demographics, location, quality and safety.
The third station asked residents to fill out a card with general comments. Consultants planned to sort the comments according to the six categories in the second station and place them under that category on the pyramid.
Nat Heyward, a planner with Kimley-Horn, said the results from the last two stations were varied, but quality, connectivity and location seemed to be generally more important than the others based on the input from the session.
Hayward said the firm commonly uses such exercises to obtain quantifiable points of information about subjective data. Using such tactics, Hayward said the firm can get closer to an understanding of what drives the Greenville market.
Rossi said will continue compiling such data throughout the community in the coming weeks as well as gathering physical information about the market. She said Tuesday was the kickoff for the survey, giving the firm a baseline of the city’s interest in housing. She said the firm did little research before the kickoff.
Austin Jordan, a senior at East Carolina University, said he was there to try and provide student input for the study. He said that as a student and member of the Student Government Association, he often speaks to students about these matters, and wanted to make sure they were represented. He said he was not speaking for the SGA in any capacity, but thought one issue with student housing was the price.
“I know a lot of students who would put cost as a priority over safety,” said Jordan.
Jordan said he thought students needed to be more involved in the study. He said he is glad to see that the city is placing an emphasis on looking at the housing market, but he thought holding the public input meeting off campus was making it more difficult to get that student input.
Chris Mansfield, a retired professor at ECU, said he was at the event because he had taken an interest in the issue sometime back. He said one of the things he thought the company should make sure it looks at is how ECU will be expanding in the coming years.
He said that besides the increasing number of students, the company needed to take into consideration the growing popularity of online classes and commuter students.
The study is expected to be presented to the council by December. Over the next months, staff with Kimbley Horn will be meeting with city officials, ECU officials and stakeholders.
“We are going to decline this request,†said Brock Letchworth, public information officer for the city of Greenville, in an emailed statement to The East Carolinian. “However, I will send you a statement from the City Manager in the next day or two.â€
How is the study taking into account Pitt Community College?
There is a demand for off site student housing in Greenville/Winterville by students not attending ECU and not located near ECU's campus. Lots of students move to Greenville to attend PCC.
I haven’t been a fan of anything Letchworth has done when it comes to the issues at GFR. He seems to be stand-offish and the things he says does not sit well with me, especially in the video interviews.
“When asked, Griffin said it’s impossible to compare the turnover rates of GFR to other fire departments because of how the department runs its EMS calls.
“We can’t answer your question directly because (GFR) offers different types of services,†Griffin said.â€
That, in my mind, leads one to think that maybe the current Fire/EMS model they’re running is too over bearing. I wonder if they have considered splitting the two divisions. Something isn’t working here.
We can increase our smaller towns population to 30,000 by building more houses and adding whatever to it. Winterville will probably be the first one, but we can get all of them (even Bethel!) because Wake and Mecklenburg counties, have strong growth like Gwinnett and Collin. Not sure about Simpson, but I guess they need to widen highway 33 first.
We have plenty of land to add development, this county is big enough to have more development. The south west bypass took up lots of our land, but I saw a Dollar General at davenport farm rd, which was the first priority to growth.
We can increase our smaller towns population to 30,000 by building more houses and adding whatever to it. Winterville will probably be the first one, but we can get all of them (even Bethel!) because Wake and Mecklenburg counties, have strong growth like Gwinnett and Collin. Not sure about Simpson, but I guess they need to widen highway 33 first.
We have plenty of land to add development, this county is big enough to have more development. The south west bypass took up lots of our land, but I saw a Dollar General at davenport farm rd, which was the first priority to growth.
We can increase our smaller towns population to 30,000 by building more houses and adding whatever to it. Winterville will probably be the first one, but we can get all of them (even Bethel!) because Wake and Mecklenburg counties, have strong growth like Gwinnett and Collin. Not sure about Simpson, but I guess they need to widen highway 33 first.
We have plenty of land to add development, this county is big enough to have more development. The south west bypass took up lots of our land, but I saw a Dollar General at davenport farm rd, which was the first priority to growth.
Slay, I've really tried to be open minded about your posts. But that line has really pushed me to ask this question. Are you a young kid or a teenager or just really high when you make your posts? We can increase populations by building more houses and adding "whatever" to it???? What does that mean? How does that make any sense??
Somehow someone has to just build 8,000 new homes and magically 20,000 people will just show up in Winterville? Am I getting that right? Forget having jobs or infrastructure or quality of life. Building houses just magically makes people show up like it's a SimCity video game. It's not.
I hate to be so harsh, but you really gotta think your posts through when you're making them. Otherwise you just sound like you're high as a kite or a 12 year old kid and no one will take your opinions seriously.
Last edited by michealbond; 10-05-2017 at 07:15 AM..
A purple and gold beam was hoisted high atop the frame of ECU’s new student center Wednesday where it put the finishing touches on the building’s structure.
Dozens of ECU students and faculty who had gathered near Joyner Library for the topping off ceremony surrounded the beam before it was lifted by a crane whose line was adorned with flag of the United States as well as a Pirates No Quarter flag.
The event welcomed a handful of school administrators, including chancellor Cecil Staton and former chancellor Steve Ballard, who began talks on the project more than 10 years ago.
Some administrators and project managers gave speeches before the beam raising. Those who showed up were allowed to sign the beam before it was put in place, putting their mark on the finishing touches.
“It’s a wonderful celebration for this particular part of our project,” said Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs Virginia Hardy. “It signifies that were well on our way to this building being done by next fall.”
The new student center, scheduled to open in November 2018, is a 210,000-square foot facility that sits facing 10th Street. It has been branded as the new “front door” to ECU’s campus and will play host to a plethora of student organizations. It will also feature a black box theatre, a 14,000-square foot ballroom, dining options and an outdoor digital screen.
The amenities prompted Staton to call it ECU’s “living room,” where he said students can gather to relax and have fun.
“First and foremost, we have to remember that it will be a gathering place,” Staton said during his speech. “It will give our students a place to collaborate, to study, to lead, to develop and maybe even occasionally to sleep.”
Staton also said the new center will be a great recruiting tool for incoming students. It was a part of a $160-million ECU Student Centers Project, which also included a student center on the Health Sciences Campus, which opened in May.
Jeff Yelton, who works with the architectural firm in charge of designing the new center, Perkins+Will Global, said the latest milestone is one of many that builders have been excited about.
It was not long ago that the project looked like nothing more than a hole in the ground. Now, with the framework entirely in place, Yelton said students have something tangible to get excited about.
Still, he said things may look like they are slowing down once the interior work gets started.
“Once it starts going there are so many other milestones that you’re hitting and tracking along the way,” Yelton said. “But it’s going to look like nothing is happening for a while because everything is happening inside the building. That makes it feel like it slows down but it’s been a smooth project from day one.”
Hardy said the project is about 18 days behind schedule, due to to complications from last year’s Hurricane Matthew. Even with the delay, however, the project is still progressing in a timely manner.
Once complete, Hardy said the new student center will help fit the needs of ECU’s students — something the current student center no longer does.
“We feel the Mendenhall Student Center has outlived its use as a student center,” Hardy said. “It was built for 12,000 students and now at almost 30,000 we need a new facility that will be able to accommodate the needs of the 21st-century student.”
Contact Brian Wudkwych at bwudkwych@reflector.com or 252-329-9567 and follow @brianwudkwych on Twitter.
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