50 replies to this topic

[orulz]

hauntedheadnc, on Sep 27 2008, 07:42 PM, said:

I didn't call you anything.  There's nothing I can do about a foot in search of a shoe that fits, though, I'm afraid.

Actually, you did, whether you meant to or not:

hauntedheadnc, on Sep 27 2008, 01:48 PM, said:

... when the city was not populated by and governed by dolts ... I for one would appreciate it if you and yours would quit trying ...

I actually agree with your argument HauntedHeadNC, and I can see that you are passionate, but please make your arguments without implications like the above.

Remember, though, that even way back when, people were against what they perceived as over-development in the name of profit, although the ideas of "nimby" or "community input" or "neighborhood opposition" or even "zoning" hadn't been invented yet. I seem to remember Thomas Wolfe, for one, being very cynical about the boom years of the 1920s. So this is not a new phenomenon. However, generally speaking, when we look back upon all the developments of the 1920s in Asheville, they are looked upon as almost universally positive. That is not to say that any and all development downtown is or would be positive, but even things that seem "out of place" right now, can become not-so-out of place in the future.

As I said before, though, I do consider the Haywood Street corridor to be worthy of preservation. Any empty lots, sure, do whatever you want, and there are a couple buildings that can go (like that 1920s parking deck), but the building Fraga wants to demolish is not among them. That part of the corridor is completely built up and has a stellar, human scale to it found nowhere else in the state. Regardless of what's built in its place, I think that anything built in place of the old Haywood Building can do nothing but detract, but Fraga's condo tower especially because I don't like the design of the base, and the base includes a parking entrance. What they really need to do for a parking entrance, is to share the extremely wide alley of 21 Battery Park.

[hauntedheadnc]

If you have ideas for changing or improving the project, be sure to call the developers and tell them.  Believe me, they know how large a project this is and how it will affect the city.  After having met them though, I can say that they truly do have Asheville's interests at heart and not just their own.  

As for whether or not I called Lootles a dolt, if I did I apologize, but I will include him or her in with the group that mistakenly believes somehow that Asheville is not the urban hub of a region of almost 400,000 people, and is instead some small isolated town where urban growth would be out of place.  To put it nicely.

[Lootles]

hauntedheadnc, on Sep 29 2008, 03:19 PM, said:

If you have ideas for changing or improving the project, be sure to call the developers and tell them.  Believe me, they know how large a project this is and how it will affect the city.  After having met them though, I can say that they truly do have Asheville's interests at heart and not just their own.  

As for whether or not I called Lootles a dolt, if I did I apologize, but I will include him or her in with the group that mistakenly believes somehow that Asheville is not the urban hub of a region of almost 400,000 people, and is instead some small isolated town where urban growth would be out of place.  To put it nicely.

I accept your apology, hauntedhead, though I suspect it isn't all that sincere.  It was kind of you, nevertheless.

As to what you ascribe to be what I think.... I have to disagree with you.  I do not want to keep Asheville a small isolated town.  It isn't now and hasn't been that for decades.  But I do have problems with a development of this size given all the other development of this sort planned in the near future and going on now.  Perhaps I'm not as prescient as you to know what our economy is bringing, but I'd hate to see these over-large developments sit half-empty because out of town speculators wanted to grab the quick buck at our expense.

As always, your mileage may (and invariably will) vary.

Best,
Lootles

[hauntedheadnc]

Lootles, on Oct 3 2008, 09:23 PM, said:

I accept your apology, hauntedhead, though I suspect it isn't all that sincere.  It was kind of you, nevertheless.

As to what you ascribe to be what I think.... I have to disagree with you.  I do not want to keep Asheville a small isolated town.  It isn't now and hasn't been that for decades.  But I do have problems with a development of this size given all the other development of this sort planned in the near future and going on now.  Perhaps I'm not as prescient as you to know what our economy is bringing, but I'd hate to see these over-large developments sit half-empty because out of town speculators wanted to grab the quick buck at our expense.

As always, your mileage may (and invariably will) vary.

Best,
Lootles

I'm of the opinion that Fraga isn't so stupid as to build a condo tower for which there's no demand.  The demand for the hotel tower is already there.  You may be forgetting that this is not a new hotel going up -- it's an expansion of an existing hotel.  Fraga's Haywood Park Hotel consistently loses out on large groups because it does not have the space to accommodate them.

As for what the economy may or may not do... should we really let the fear of what might happen hold Asheville in stasis?  Should we only allow a project to go through if its developers can prove that it will be fully-occupied for at least a century?  What on earth could get built that way?  I'll say it again -- I'm glad that the timid people in charge and making their voices heard now weren't around in the 1920's to block the construction of everything we love downtown today.  Can you even imagine the uproar if someone wanted to build something like the Grove Arcade itself?  The shrieks would shatter every window in a ten mile radius of downtown.

Edited by hauntedheadnc, 04 October 2008 - 07:19 AM.

[rooster8]

According to the C-T, Fraga has canceled the project.  Some blame was assigned to the economy, but a lot was directed at the city council.  It does say that he will remodel the Haywood Park Hotel.

[orulz]

To be honest, I'm not too disappointed by the loss of this specific project. I honestly didn't think it could ever get built as envisioned in the first place. If it was proposed in 2005 or 2006, maybe, but being proposed in 2007 it just wasn't going to happen. Part of me is actually glad, because this means the Haywood Building won't be torn down. Nevertheless, I don't like the precedent it sets, where the city gets to deny buildings because they're too tall.

I'm hoping that the downtown master plan will make this process less arbitrary by specifying parts of downtown where high rises are OK, and parts where they are not.

I hope that Fraga still considers building a small expansion of the Haywood Park, even if it's less ornate, on that parking lot facing Page Avenue. He could redevelop the Kostas building too, and I wouldn't cry about that either.

Didn't Fraga kick out all the tenants? Kostas closed down, for example. He's probably regretting that right about now.

[hauntedheadnc]

I can't say as I'm surprised at this, although I'd rather it had been simply the economy that killed it, rather than nostalgia for a past that never existed here in the first place.

As for building on the parking lot or rebuilding the Kostas building, don't bet on it.  With the idiocy that Fraga had to put up with about this project, I imagine he's learned his lesson that Asheville does not want growth.  That parking lot on Page will be there to greet our great-grandchildren, just like that weedy, cracked lot around the Battery Park Apartments.

[voyager12]

With the Fraga project on Haywood on hiatus I wonder if tenants could be found for the vacant spaces. One would think a yearly lease for the former Spiral location and others would be reasonable given the economy. I was in Asheville yesterday and it's a shame to have a dead zone directly across from Malaprops. It hurts the street's vitality overall. I suppose one silver lining in this slowdown is the ability for plans to take shape to deal with the inevitable reburst of condo frenzy.

As an aside, and perhaps since it was a glorious day the downtown was filled with a wonderful assortment of people. It's a veritable parade of diversity. A great gift for a city to have and an asset that should not be needlessly squandered through ill planned gentrification.

Edited by voyager12, 23 March 2009 - 05:12 PM.

[AsheVid]

Yes, I used to work in that building... they started talking redevelopment over four years ago and drove all the tenants out. Now the whole place is empty, go figure!  
I walked through the dead mall in Westgate today, husband mused that any empty space like that should be leased for $1 until they can find someone who will pay full price.

[hauntedheadnc]

voyager12, on Mar 23 2009, 06:06 PM, said:

With the Fraga project on Haywood on hiatus I wonder if tenants could be found for the vacant spaces. One would think a yearly lease for the former Spiral location and others would be reasonable given the economy. I was in Asheville yesterday and it's a shame to have a dead zone directly across from Malaprops. It hurts the street's vitality overall. I suppose one silver lining in this slowdown is the ability for plans to take shape to deal with the inevitable reburst of condo frenzy.

As an aside, and perhaps since it was a glorious day the downtown was filled with a wonderful assortment of people. It's a veritable parade of diversity. A great gift for a city to have and an asset that should not be needlessly squandered through ill planned gentrification.

Well, remember that we are talking about Asheville here, and Asheville is a city that is all about making plans.  And making plans to make more plans.  And making plans to study the plans to make more plans. And studying plans to make more plans to study more planned studies.  

And so on.  

Basically, nothing will get done on any front when it comes to growth because Asheville is a city dedicated to the pursuit of studying and planning itself into the ground.  They've been talking about what to do about our disintegrating Civic Center for well over fifteen years.  I-26's expansion has been in discussion since the 80's.  And meanwhile, all growth is bad.  To ever hope to understand Asheville, you must understand that one indisputable fact.  Repeat after me: All growth is bad.  Suburban growth is bad.  Urban growth is bad.  Mountainside subdivisions are really bad.  And revitalization is just another world for gentrification.  

By the way, there is a plan, developed at great expense as they usually are, designed to guide downtown growth, but it operates under the specious assumption that the city government would ever allow anything to be built downtown in the first place.  At the moment the community is in an uproar because this plan is entirely too friendly to developers, plus it is also not friendly enough to developers.  

If you want to know how Asheville would like to grow, you need only remember the wise words of one local citizen who wrote in with an alternate suggestion for the Haywood Park site.  He suggested that rather than build such hideous tall buildings, Fraga instead invest in local craftsmen and artisans who could put together the most finely-crafted, beautiful two story building in the nation.  How such a building would be affordable -- because we also hate the rich up here and don't want any more of them moving in and taking over our town -- was not discussed because it never is.  How one can build squat buildings and still recoup their investment, considering the cost of downtown land, is an issue never really addressed by the "Village People" who infest Asheville and who believe that instead of living in the urban hub of this part of the state, they instead live in Mars Hill or some bona fide quainty-cutesy village.  And thus, we get the short buildings the Village People demand, but naturally they are expensive.  21 Battery Park -- squat, ugly, and expensive.  12 S. Lexington -- squat, ugly, and expensive.  The Ravenscroft Project -- squat, ugly, and expensive.  

And thus, the Village People are shocked and outraged that developers charge high prices for what few units they are allowed to build, and cry gentrification.  And so, developers really can't win.  

You'd think that Asheville, forced by the Sullivan Acts to grab its ankles like no other city in the state, would be doing everything in its power to make developing in the city a more attractive option than developing in the county.  The Sullivan Acts force Asheville to subsidize with its water system its own sprawl.  You'd think that we'd want developers to fill in our gaps and build over downtown's cracked, weedy parking lots.  You'd think we'd want employers to bring in jobs so that Ashevillians could hope for a career that did not involve kissing ungrateful tourists' asses.  You'd think we'd want more customers for our businesses and more patrons for our arts and artistic venues.  

You'd think, but we don't want any of that and we fret and dither and waste time and nothing ever gets done.  Our city council and city government in general take uselessness to an entirely new level.  I wish that just once they'd put down their fiddles and pick up a fire extinguisher.  

Mark my words.  When the economy gets healthy again, nothing in Asheville will change.  We'll fight growth downtown tooth and nail while the county sprawls to hell and gone.  All the factories and offices and corporate expansions will still go to Greenville.  We'll still get ever more expensive.  Ashevillians will still complain about everything.  In short, Asheville will still be burning no matter what.  The only change we might even hope to see is that the city council, in a bold move, will propose to plan a study to plan more studies about studying planned studied plans about the feasibility of, rather than fiddling while the city burns, chasing butterflies instead.

[hauntedheadnc]

AsheVid, on Mar 23 2009, 07:36 PM, said:

Yes, I used to work in that building... they started talking redevelopment over four years ago and drove all the tenants out. Now the whole place is empty, go figure!  
I walked through the dead mall in Westgate today, husband mused that any empty space like that should be leased for $1 until they can find someone who will pay full price.

Both places need to be redeveloped.  The Haywood Park Hotel is too small and consistently lost out on business because of that, and parts of the attached mall are dumpy and moldy.  The Kosta's building is an unlovable box, as are those two squat and ugly buildings on the far side of the art deco furniture store building, and that parking lot is an abominable waste of space in the middle of downtown.  Westgate Mall is even worse.  Fraga's folly was in thinking that he would be allowed to redevelop his property.  He forgot that Asheville's credo is "Death before urbanism."  

Frankly though, I'm surprised that there isn't more celebration at the Haywood Park atrium emptying out.  Downtown merchants hate the specter of growth so badly that I'd think the only thing that could possibly please them would be for growth to reverse.  I figured people would be calling for every empty store to be torn down and be replaced by a park within hours of the store going out of business and I'm shocked to have not heard even a peep about that.  I mean come on -- where's the Asheville I know and love?  All growth is bad, and buildings are evil.  We need none of it and less of them!  Bulldoze downtown now!

Edited by hauntedheadnc, 24 March 2009 - 12:25 AM.