urbanlife

That is unfortunate, this tower would have been a great addition to Norfolk....though I am not surprised.

This is where I am confused with the design of the light rail because it made no sense for them to put in two stops that couldn't be expanded or not just building each stop to handle two length trains already, even if the city was only running one train length right now. It would have made it easier to upgrade to longer trains without the need to do major construction at each stop and have two stops that would basically have to be completely redesigned. Actually, looking at both stops again, I stand corrected, there is enough room for a two train length train at MacAuthur stop, and the NSU stop would only need a small adjustment to extend the platform to handle a two car train.

This right here, it is odd to me that the entire Tide system is designed to only handle one car length trains rather than be designed to handle two or three car lengths. With designing a system that is just one car length, it would have made more sense to go with more streetcar style trains similar to the Portland Streetcar, and design a streetcar rail system that best fits Norfolk since it is probably just going to be a rail system for the city of Norfolk only. That way those trains could have been planned easier to run on old streetcar routes.

This is one thing (of many things) that I like about living in Oregon. Every incorporated city must identify where the downtown is and have a masterplan in place for the future development of that downtown. This is something that would be beneficial for Virginia, especially in Hampton Roads with cities like Chesapeake because I don't think that city has ever identified any part of it to be its downtown. At this point, it seems like the Dollar Tree location is the best its gonna get for having an official downtown.

Wow, sad to hear the Raven is closing, I definitely have some memories with that place growing up. The beach is losing a major fixture.

This caught me off guard, we have a Works PA in Portland and at first I thought you were talking about them, but looking up WPA in Norfolk, they look like a young firm that is doing some really quality work for Norfolk and that metro. Good to see architecture firms like this in Norfolk.

That would have been interesting if the beach had a height regulation along the east side of Atlantic, with a higher height limit on the west side of Atlantic. It would have created an interesting cascade of hotels from the beach. The beach might have also gotten hotels that stretched from the east side to the west side through skybridges and such.

I somewhat disagree with this statement, keeping development west of Atlantic would have opened up to the possibility of protecting the dunes that were probably once there, which would have been a great thing to have preserved today, but allowing development on the east side of Atlantic doesn't take away any views. Now the reason why I say this is because you are just looking at streets that motorists use, well lets consider the boardwalk a street that pedestrians can use. That would mean there is an unobstructed view for pedestrians walking along the boardwalk because there are no buildings built on the eastside of the boardwalk.

The last crash was more of a national recession from an over inflated housing market. This one will come from a combination of things and be more business related rather than housing. One factor is with how poor Trump has been handling trade, another major factor will be Brexit, if that one happens, that could send a shockwave through the economy that could further fuel a recession. For most people in the US, I don't think it will be as bad as 2008, but we will probably see a slow down in hiring with a number of big layoffs happening.

I feel like people like me that grew up in Hampton Roads has either moved away or moved to Norfolk. I would love to see Norfolk grow and become the little urban liberal city in that metro. Norfolk still has so much potential on a regional standpoint, especially as other more popular urban liberal cities become more expensive. I don't know, some of the new architecture going up in Vegas is really amazing and modern. The ARIA casino and all the buildings around it are amazing architecture. It would be cool to see something similar to that in the Norfolk skyline.

Actual BRT doesn't get stuck in single car traffic, it runs on its own right of way system. It is much more like light rail but without the tracks or light rail cars. Bus Rapid Transit example

I am really surprised that the Rudee Loop never became a massive all inclusive resort hotel. With that much available land, it seems like a prime spot for something like that.

BRT when done like how it is supposed to be designed doesn't run in traffic, and buses can easily be electric. Light rail is better for moving a lot of people over a distance, but in places that have light density, BRT could work well.

Wow, this really is going to become downtown Chesapeake

It is a shame the road wasn't shifted a little bit further away from the building to make it easier to build a storefronts building along it.