52 replies to this topic

[adctvmonkey]

I'm so sorry for posting a non-working link   . But I'll just tell you where to find it. And no, the design is not the same as what is in the sketches.
Go to centexhomes.com>virginia>hampton roads>then you'll find the neighborhood on the map.

It is ugly   .

[vdogg]

Updated site plan

Warning! .pdf file

Also, looking at the photos section of their website, they have posted an additional rendering that looks close to the one on centex homes site.

[Weaver24]

The pictures look good.  There has been alot of development going on the Jefferson Ave corridor from J Clyde towards Denbigh.  It looks good up there and there are alot of businesses on that strip.  Bad News even have stores that have their only Hampton Roads location there like Trader Joe's, World Market, etc.  Bad News is doing alot.  Even people on the southside go to that area to shop...especially if you want to go to that great store Trader Joe's.  I love that place and wish one was on the southside.  The only thing I don't like about Patrick Henry Mall is that it's too small.  It does have a nice variety of stores unlike Military Circle.

[vdogg]

I think i may take urban away from the byline underneath the thread title. I passed by this today on my way back from Richmond and the buildings they had up so far all looked like regular apartment buildings with beige and tan vinyl siding (our worst fears have indeed been realized). Nothing like the original rendering at all. I'm horribly disappointed in this. It looks like these guys decided to pull a bait and switch on the city council. They presented them with a wonderful looking project and then built crap instead . Sadly, this is something we should all be getting used to here in the 7 cities.

[urbanfan]

vdogg, on Oct 11 2007, 03:48 PM, said:

I think i may take urban away from the byline underneath the thread title. I passed by this today on my way back from Richmond and the buildings they had up so far all looked like regular apartment buildings with beige and tan vinyl siding (our worst fears have indeed been realized). Nothing like the original rendering at all. I horribly disappointed in this. It looks like these guys decided to pull a bait and switch on the city council. They presented them with a wonderful looking project and then built crap instead . Sadly, this is something we should all be getting used to here in the 7 cities.

Actually this project went for a redesign a while back which is why you see the crap they are building.  There was no market for the concept they originally had so they made it more of a residentail area.  Everything had to go through the whole planning process again.  It's not like the city didn't know about this.

[adctvmonkey]

Stony Point has also turned out to be largely suburban. I remember reading a newsletter for developers a couple of years ago that bluntly stated they should label their developments as embracing 'new urbanism' even if its not as a successful marketing cache.

[vdogg]

Time for me to eat some crow. I spoke waaaay too soon about this project. While the initial residential buildings may have seemed suburban, the rest of the project seems to be quite urban and in a word, massive. I passed by the area on the freeway for the first time in months and was surprised to see a couple of 4-8 story buildings going up that were quite massive in size. They are being constructed with steel and are likely the larger brick buildings we saw depicted in the earlier renderings. All told, it looks like this is going to turn out to be about the size of City Center judging by all the land they cleared. It's already an impressive site from the freeway with the few buildings going up now.

[rusthebuss]

I went by it today as well. Not too bad looking

[johnk812]

Pictures from 8/6/08

[vdogg]

This project is meh to me. The brick frontage looks good, too bad it's surrounded by 3 sides of vinyl, which is the part visible from the freeway. It seemed to me earlier that they were starting to head in the right direction, unfortunately it looks like i'm going to have to retract my earlier retraction. I'm not fond of the Chesapeake style hotels either. This project is a shadow of what was originally put on paper.

[johnk812]

vdogg, on Aug 7 2008, 05:28 AM, said:

This project is meh to me. The brick frontage looks good, too bad it's surrounded by 3 sides of vinyl, which is the part visible from the freeway. It seemed to me earlier that they were starting to head in the right direction, unfortunately it looks like i'm going to have to retract my earlier retraction. I'm not fond of the Chesapeake style hotels either. This project is a shadow of what was originally put on paper.

Are you insulting Chesapeake? That's lame.
I agree with you otherwize. From the highway - not so impressive. Up close it's better though. It's half-baked at best, but looks pretty good so far.

[vdogg]

Haha, not insulting Chesapeake, just the architecture of the hotels built in Chesapeake. That parking lot would look at home near any Walmart. The original goal of this project was to be one of urban design. Unfortunately, at least where the hotels are concerned, it has a decidedly suburban quality. I would have preferred all buildings in this project be flush with the sidewalks, with some nice streetscaping added in for good measure.

[PeninsulaKiddo]

I drive by this project every day on the Interstate (luckily for my urban voyeur perspective, traffic is usually at a standstill on 64 at Jefferson, so I get to look for quite awhile........ ).  But, I agree that's it's just sort of "meh".  The density isn't that great thanks to the enormous parking lot(s), and the vinyl siding looks... cheap from the interstate.  I don't know how else to word it.

I was thinking the other day, it would've been really cool to connect it over to where the Wal Mart currently stands - build a two-zone development with commercial and residential interests where PHPlace is currently going up and an "urban-inspired" office park where the Wal Mart stands (it's the crappiest Wal Mart in the history of Wal Mart, which is quite a dubious distinction).  Something architecturally-similar to L'Enfant in D.C., but low-rise so as not to impede the airport?  That would've been awesome.

But we get a courtyard Marriott desperately trying to be 'out of the box.'  The fronts of the apartments and townhomes look great, nice detailing, all that jazz; I just wish all the buildings were somewhat cohesive or at least up to that par.

Edited by PeninsulaKiddo, 07 August 2008 - 10:19 AM.