55 replies to this topic

[dnast]

Here's a bland little sketch of the Hughes & Hatcher (the one in the middle). It'll be made to look like two separate buildings:



You've probably already seen that though

[Allan]

I think I saw that in the paper once before. You're right though, the sketch is quite bland. Hopefully the completed building will look better than that.

[dnast]

I'd just like for them to get started on the thing, lol. Everything takes so long in Flint. The only thing going at a good pace is the Carraige Town townhouse project. I still see them pushing dirt around every day at University Park Estates! They've been doing that since what? At least May?

I guess the windows for the Atwood Building are being hand-made in Antartica or something. It's been sitting with seemingly no activity since the new bricks were put up. But I won't complain about that building too much. It'll be fully occupied and given a new name imprinted into the building

[tropolis]

sorry i havent been here in a while. I liek how you changed thwe michigan forum setup. Didn't want the lansing area, huh?
hey dnast, nice to see you in this forum. Thanx for putting my thread in the mid michigan area. dnast knows me as megatower at ssp.
After you made the mid-michigan section, a lot of flint topics suddenly popped up. I dont know when i will be on again...

Edited by tropolis, 15 September 2004 - 02:46 PM.

[Allan]

Welcome back to UP!

We decided not to do the Lansing section at this time. We don't have any forumers who would represent Lansing. I don't know enough about the city to represent it myself, and I don't exactly have the time to represent the city anyways...college is keeping me very busy!

[tropolis]

cool. you also got dnast here too. He likes to talk about flint stuff.

[Allan]

I am regretting not doing one final Flint photo tour before I left for school. I have to get up to Flint sometime to do that. I'm just not looking forward to all the traffic I'll encounter on the way. I always seem to get stuck in traffic jams. It took me 45 minutes to get to the grocery store once!!

[tropolis]

do you think the flint public library should be located closer to downtown? the current location is not perfect because central high school students clog up the parking lot. Moving it downtown can bring a lot of pedestrians downtown and a downtown revolution.

[Allan]

The library is outdated anyway, so I think it would be a good idea to move it downtown. Most cities have central libraries in their downtowns, so why not Flint? The only issues with this would be money and parking. Parking could be in a ramp, as well as on the street. The money issue is the next obstacle. Who is going to pay for this? A slight tax increase would easily pay for a new library, but I don't know that the citizens of Flint would vote in favor of this.

[tropolis]

perhaps mcc and u-of-m could pay for a portion of it as grants. It might lower the tax hike for the people of flint. And the new library would have a small 2 small bus depots, one for MTA and one for bookmobiles.
more bookmobiles means expanded resources. Expanded resources means more people will like the idea.

[dnast]

It'll be hard to move the library right now. I think it was just last year voters approved a tax hike for the library. Also, with Michgan's budget crisis, most colleges and universities don't have much extra money to spare. Another thing is that the library is located in the Cultural Center, so it's not like it's in some isolated area.

The building is outdated though, and I wouldn't mind it being downtown. But I think it'd be a big blow to the neighborhood considering they'll probably lose Central soon. I don't know.

A library on top of a bus station would be pretty nice.

[dnast]

Oh, hey Tropolis. I kind of thought you were megatower, but I forgot to mention it before. Quit disappearing and share some more ideas and opinions

Edited by dnast, 21 September 2004 - 11:42 AM.

[tropolis]

well, i sorta like the library idea, but i just wanted to throw that one in the air for debate. There should be a MAJOR rennovation projevt along the river, including an IMAX theatre and a large plaza that will be the 'centerpiece' of pedestrian and cultural activity of the downtown area. Let's not forget to put an amphitheater to boot. How's that for an idea?

as a note: these aren't very strong opinions, I just throw these ideas to debate. I may not be on as much.

[Allan]

Doing anything with the riverfront is a good thing! The current riverfront is the most pathetic thing I've ever seen!!

[dnast]

Those would be great for downtown, except for the IMAX. There was one downtown when Autoworld existed, and it obviously didn't fare too well. I don't think there's a big enough market for it in the area.

Now, the plaza and ampitheater would be great upgrades to what downtown has now. The plaza would take the place of main surface lot (between Uni. Pavillion and the Mott building); the ampitheater would take the place of Riverbank Park and its live music events.

Good ideas!

[tropolis]

well, the only reason the IMAX was not doing well in the past was because the park it was in was not very good. People just didn't want to go to a car themed museum-park. They wanted thrill rides, and auto world wasnt a contender in that field. But an IMAX allby itself for the locals should do great. Good to know the plaza and amphitheater ideas were good.

[tropolis]

what they should have done was keep the autoworld buildings and made the bigger, square one into the IMA again and used the one with the glass spikes on top as the IMAX theatre.
No six flags.
No themes.
No problem.
the new IMA, or perani arena, is not that good in seating compared to the old one.

[dnast]

I'm not too familiar with the old IMA. I would've thought that the newer one would have had better seating at least. Not that I care for that one.

I'm all for an IMAX if someone wants to bring one. I just would think of it as too risky if I was a developer, myself.

[Allan]

I don't remember the old IMA myself. I was too young at the time. I was probably only 10 years old when the building came down. So the only thing I remember is when we watched it come crashing down...although as I remember, it didn't work as well as they thought it was going to.

[tropolis]

its great to hear about Rowe inc. wanting to be downtown. Now we just have to hurry up on that parking structure project. The rebirth of flint has begun.