13 replies to this topic

[Matthew]

City-County Plaza could change it's name to a donor's name! I'm excited about all the changes! I told you they would go with restrooms and visitors center! The concert area is what I'm most intrested in. I like live music and being outdoors around the buildings! I think they may have sculpture on "the un-named lawn" as we shall call it. I'm glad to see that confusing intersection will be removed. Tourists never know where to stop and they sometimes block the intersection.

Pack Square plan could have many seeing green
By Mark Barrett, Staff Writer
March 21, 2004 9:39 p.m.

By Mark Barrett

STAFF WRITER

ASHEVILLE - Condos, no. Trees and grass, yes.

That's a quick summary of a plan to renovate Pack Square and City-County Plaza scheduled to go before City Council on Tuesday.

(rest of old newspaper article removed. Buy it here if you must read it. -orulz)

Edited by orulz, 22 May 2006 - 05:30 PM.

[Raleigh-NC]

Any chance of seeing the images? From a short visit to the site I can say with confidence that it is a great project and carrying this out (without further ado or controversies) will take Asheville to new heights. This city is VERY progressive and I see no reason why Pack Square should meet any resistance. I am not familiar with Pack Square, and while I would have loved to see more condos within Asheville's center, I am sure that this final concept will please everyone and focus the energy of the City Council to moving the city forward.

[Matthew]

This is the new plan council will vote on tonight. I don't think there will be any resistance to this plan. The 12-15 storey condo tower is still proposed, just in a new location and the new plans for the lawn look great. I'm happy with the way everything is turning out!

[Raleigh-NC]

I love the images!!! I am happy that the proposed condo towered was not cancelled altogether. Asheville can benefit from this renovation, but shouldn't miss the chance to strengthen its image. There should be no obstacles for the City Council to approve this plan.

[cityboi]

VERY COOL!!

[uptownliving]

Great News...Asheville is just plain awesome... I was up there a few weeks ago and went to the Asheville Musuem at Pack Square...and if you go inside, past the store and turn right...in the big open area there they have serveral models of Pack Square showing its evolution from when Asheville was founded....it was really interesting.

Edited by uptownliving, 24 March 2004 - 03:01 PM.

[Matthew]

It finally passed! After years of talk on changing the square, it's finally going to happen. I will miss the fountain and pond. I do wish we had a large pool of water downtown. I will welcome the concert area and restrooms though. No more going to Woolworth's Walk to use the restrooms. I did find some intresting art going in there though. Sometimes you can make a few sales, just by offering public restrooms. I don't know if I like the idea of renaming the park though. It should remain Pack Square, honoring the work of George Pack to create a central park for Asheville. Donors should be allowed to name only features and sections of the park, not the whole park. Pack Square was George Pack's idea and it was his money that moved the old courthouse to create the park. His name should stay on it forever. If they rename it, they should at least build a statue in his honor. We (Asheville Residents) should all get together and give $500,000+ as a community to keep the name "Pack Square" on the park. I also don't want the name "City-County Plaza" to go away, but it's not as important as Pack Square.



ASHEVILLE - Applause and hoots filled Asheville City Council chambers this morning after council unanimously approved new design plans for Pack Square.

After years of planning, Pack Square Conservancy members had to wait more than seven hours Tuesday before council approved plans that will create a community living room of lawns, theaters and waterfalls in the heart of downtown Asheville.

(rest of old newspaper article removed. Buy it here if you must read it.)

Edited by orulz, 22 May 2006 - 05:29 PM.

[Raleigh-NC]

Well, congratulations on the decision!!! I agree with you, Matthew, on the naming of the square/plaza. Hopefully the city will reconsider and keep the name as is. From the renderings it looks like a beautiful project. I liked the last image a lot!!!

[monsoon]

[orulz]

Found this new rendering of the Pack Square park, what will be one of, if not the premier downtown public spaces in North Carolina.


The Patton-College connector has been decommissioned permanently,while Patton and College will both eventually become two-way streets. I really wish they could do something better with the front of the Akzona / Biltmore building. Trees are nice, but not when they're on top of a berm that turns a public square into dead space. I'd much rather see something active on the square. I think a permanent stall market, for artists and whoever, could be a nice addition.

[hauntedheadnc]

What I've been itching to know is where they're going to put the veterans memorial in.  They approved that a while back, and while I haven't heard anything new about it, I recall that it was loosely based on the WWII memorial in DC, with a long, curving collonade.  

(Originally, the plan was to feature a statue of a woman sitting on a bench reading a letter to represent all the families left behind by soldiers, but this being Asheville, there were protests because the memorial did not plan to feature instead male and female statues of all ethnic groups as well as a gay and a lesbian couple reading letters -- the woman alone was obviously ethnocentric and sexist, and probably a remnant of runnin-dog capitalist colonialist tendencies and was thus scrapped in the final plan.)

At any rate, if memory serves me, the war memorial was supposed to be about 60 feet long.  Where on earth would that fit into this plan?

Edited by hauntedheadnc, 23 May 2006 - 02:30 PM.

[orulz]

hauntedheadnc, on May 23 2006, 04:29 PM, said:

At any rate, if memory serves me, the war memorial was supposed to be about 60 feet long.  Where on earth would that fit into this plan?

If memory serves me, wasn't that monument going behind the stage near City Hall and the courthouse? Could be wrong.

[NcSc74]

I like the look of it....

[orulz]

Bringing back an old thread.
According to this article the projected completion date of Pack Square Park is now April 5th, 2063.

The latest complaint is that "all of a sudden" NCDOT wants an erosion and stormwater control plan before they'll give any money to the project. No explanation of why they didn't try to figure this sort of thing out when they got federal money through DOT in the first place...

Seriously, whoever is in charge of this thing needs to be sacked. They are completely inept at getting their ducks in a row, dealing with bureaucracy, and using politics to cut through red tape.