What can we do about that vacant corner store? Until now the choices were speculate among neighbors or online (I’ve had many conversations with neighbors that go like this: “that would be a great place for an independent coffee shop, but I don’t want a chain”), call your city councilmember (“can’t you find a nice coffeeshop for that space?”) or just hope (“I hope someone opens a coffeeshop”). Even though that corner building is small and inexpensive by commercial real estate standards, it is too expensive to purchase myself, and risky nonetheless, since I don’t know how to be a…
I forget if the ill-advised and ill-fated monorail from the Simpsons was in Springfield or neighboring arch-rival Shelbyville (or both). I just spent a four day working weekend doing a market study in Shelbyville, Tennessee, and they didn’t have a monorail. But maybe a little more coordinated transportation and land use planning would help not just Shelbyville but many cities across this land, at least based on the transportation calamity I constantly witnessed in my four day trip. This gets at my larger point. For working in Shelbyville, I based myself in Smyrna, a southeast suburb of Nashville, and about…
Could the main facade of the Ford Plant be preserved as part of a public park/promenade? Shown in the photograph above is a section of the former Ford Plant in St. Paul that seems to offer a wonderful opportunity for preservation and placemaking. Is it possible to remove the sections of windows and keep the columns so it would look and function something like this portion of Bethesda Terrace, shown below? As you can see below, while the end of this facade faces the Mississippi River, its length is perhaps 300 feet long. Having a 300-foot long promenade with open…
“Can we validate your parking, sir?” was the question posed as I paid my dinner tab this evening here in Nashville. I said “No, thank you. I’m walking.” As the waiter walked away I tried to come up with a cheeky response about validating my walking, but alas I’m not too quick on my feet. After all it was a pleasant, chilly evening, and I had a pleasant walk back to my hotel. Burning off a little dinner and getting some fresh air is enough for me – I don’t ask much. The walk got me thinking, as walks tend…
Tomorrow, Thursday January 17, ULI Minnesota will be hosting a program entitled Value Capture: Funding Infrastructure. Scott Polikov of Fort Worth-based Gateway Planning, will be the presenter. Scott Polikov will be demonstrating the link between public improvements like transit service and streetscaping and private investment through the increased value and development potential of real estate located near these improvements. Synchronizing public and private investments and using a form-based approach results in better urbanism. I’ve written about his work on Airport Boulevard in Austin. I will be part of a responder panel and will be applying Polikov’s work to the possibility…
Two weeks ago on The Daily Circuit, outgoing Minneapolis mayor R.T. Rybak reflected on his term and the future of the city. What caught my attention (and certinaly caught host Kerri Miller’s and several callers) was Rybak’s claim that we can add 150,000 people to the city in the next few years. Immediately the phone lines lit up and a caller was on the air claiming she loves Minneapolis but we are “living on top of one another.” Rybak explained that the caller need not worry about the character of single-family neighborhoods and all this density can go along a…
