Norfolk Off-Topic

[carolinaboy]

Went downtown today for the first time in quite a while.

Waterside was dead and seemed like there were only a few places open.

Macarthur Mall was a sad site. Very depressing.

Scope looks like a train wreck  on the outside (sorry  baobabs).

Not the Norfolk of five or ten years ago. Just didn't feel the same.  What caused it to lose it's momentum? The pandemic, apathy, I was there at the wrong time?

[baobabs727]

7 hours ago, carolinaboy said:

Went downtown today for the first time in quite a while.

Waterside was dead and seemed like there were only a few places open.

Macarthur Mall was a sad site. Very depressing.

Scope looks like a train wreck  on the outside (sorry  baobabs).

Not the Norfolk of five or ten years ago. Just didn't feel the same.  What caused it to lose it's momentum? The pandemic, apathy, I was there at the wrong time?

Is it all because I moved out of Freemason in 2020?

 

lol, jk ;-)))

[BFG]

19 hours ago, carolinaboy said:

Went downtown today for the first time in quite a while.

Waterside was dead and seemed like there were only a few places open.

Macarthur Mall was a sad site. Very depressing.

Scope looks like a train wreck  on the outside (sorry  baobabs).

Not the Norfolk of five or ten years ago. Just didn't feel the same.  What caused it to lose it's momentum? The pandemic, apathy, I was there at the wrong time?

Probably the heat and lack of events. I wonder how it looked at night?

[mintscraft56]

On 7/23/2022 at 6:19 PM, carolinaboy said:

Went downtown today for the first time in quite a while.

Waterside was dead and seemed like there were only a few places open.

Macarthur Mall was a sad site. Very depressing.

Scope looks like a train wreck  on the outside (sorry  baobabs).

Not the Norfolk of five or ten years ago. Just didn't feel the same.  What caused it to lose it's momentum? The pandemic, apathy, I was there at the wrong time?

Waterside and Macarthur, were nothing new. Waterside is kinda slipping again. Just this time it looks nice on the outside. 

Scope, Just replace it. Scope has been nothing but a concrete trouble for a while. 

Norfolk will get back to regular around the fall, when it does not feel like the surface of Venus outside. 

[varider]

I think NFK is doing better than ever. 

[EJ_LEWIS]

I was in Norfolk this weekend to attend a funeral.  I walked around Downtown Norfolk Saturday night in the heat and humidity.  Downtown was hopping Saturday night will plenty of people walking up and down Granby St. , Main St. and Monticello Ave.    Norfolk has never looked better.  Instead of tearing down Scope how about giving the building along with Chrysler Hall a good scrubbing.  Its a shame that the building looks so dirty.   I do agree however that MacArthur was sad with little foot traffic.  The quality of stores has gone way down.  So I guess the glass is half full for Downtown Norfolk.  

[EJ_LEWIS]

19 hours ago, BFG said:

Probably the heat and lack of events. I wonder how it looked at night?

There was the 21st annual Latin festival Saturday night.  

[mintscraft56]

On 7/25/2022 at 8:54 AM, EJ_LEWIS said:

I was in Norfolk this weekend to attend a funeral.  I walked around Downtown Norfolk Saturday night in the heat and humidity.  Downtown was hopping Saturday night will plenty of people walking up and down Granby St. , Main St. and Monticello Ave.    Norfolk has never looked better.  Instead of tearing down Scope how about giving the building along with Chrysler Hall a good scrubbing.  Its a shame that the building looks so dirty.   I do agree however that MacArthur was sad with little foot traffic.  The quality of stores has gone way down.  So I guess the glass is half full for Downtown Norfolk.  

McArthur is holding up alot of valuable grid land! If it were up to me, I tear it down and rebuild our cities long lost downtown grid pattern.

If only it was still like it was...

Same place today: 

[zeppelin14]

The mall is sad. I went there before Christmas and no one was there. Waterside, they basically put lipstick on a pig. Same boring concept that failed before and it's failing again.

Edited July 27, 2022 by zeppelin14

[mintscraft56]

7 hours ago, zeppelin14 said:

The mall is sad. I went there before Christmas and no one was there. Waterside, they basically put lipstick on a pig. Same boring concept that failed before and it's failing again.

Water side, needs to be turned into something more than just restaurants. If Baltimore can do it, then so can we. After all, Norfolk basically resembles Baltimore! 

Infact, Norfolk and Baltimore are the same population density. 

[mintscraft56]

 

The most shocking ones to point out are how the placement of the Suntrust, Hilton, and Norfolk Southern tower are almost completely basically mirrors of the Baltimore versions except with different looks, but guild style is similar.       Both Cities also have one tower disconnected from downtown aka our Dominion tower and their World trade center. Which is the closest to the war on the right, disconnected by a street like our Dominion tower.

Both, also have waterside and the docks infront.

And on the sports Spectrum, Our Norfolk tides is the Minor League team for the Baltimore Orioles. 

Of course there are differences some big some almost impossible to notice but I hope you see the resemblance.  

Edited July 28, 2022 by mintscraft56

[zeppelin14]

I've been to Baltimore a lot. You can't even compare Norfolk to Baltimore. Baltimore is so much larger when comparing the downtown core.

[lammius]

11 hours ago, mintscraft56 said:

Water side, needs to be turned into something more than just restaurants. If Baltimore can do it, then so can we. After all, Norfolk basically resembles Baltimore! 

Infact, Norfolk and Baltimore are the same population density. 

Not even close.  

Norfolk: 4,468 ppsm

Baltimore: 7,428 ppsm

 

[baobabs727]

20 hours ago, zeppelin14 said:

The mall is sad. I went there before Christmas and no one was there. Waterside, they basically put lipstick on a pig. Same boring concept that failed before and it's failing again.

Is anyone here willing to consider, even for a millisecond, that it’s us?  Or at least partly us. We the people of Hampton Roads. Perhaps we are partly to blame. That it’s not as simple as bad marketing or the wrong location …or lack of street grids?  Or more precisely, perhaps it’s our economy that’s the problem. An economy which fails to line we the people’s pockets with the monetary resources requisite to significant discretionary spending?  
 

[mintscraft56]

1 hour ago, lammius said:

Not even close.  

Norfolk: 4,468 ppsm

Baltimore: 7,428 ppsm

 

I guess those sites were wrong, darn the internet lol

[BeagleAccountant]

33 minutes ago, baobabs727 said:

Is anyone here willing to consider, even for a millisecond, that it’s us?  Or at least partly us. We the people of Hampton Roads. Perhaps we are partly to blame. That it’s not as simple as bad marketing or the wrong location …or lack of street grids?  Or more precisely, perhaps it’s our economy that’s the problem. An economy which fails to line we the people’s pockets with the monetary resources requisite to significant discretionary spending?  
 

Had a friend who was the manager at Nordstrom at MacArthur. She told me they were the third best performing Nordstrom in sales at the time of their closure. So I'm not sure you can blame that on area residents. And their departure from the mall was the one that broke the camels back. 

[mintscraft56]

2 hours ago, zeppelin14 said:

I've been to Baltimore a lot. You can't even compare Norfolk to Baltimore. Baltimore is so much larger when comparing the downtown core.

I was comparing looks, not the whole city, Norfolk makes Baltimore look like the gold shining city on the hill here. I was just referencing they look interestingly similar from the harbor standpoint. 

I found this on reddit. How true is this really?

[baobabs727]

11 minutes ago, BeagleAccountant said:

Had a friend who was the manager at Nordstrom at MacArthur. She told me they were the third best performing Nordstrom in sales at the time of their closure. So I'm not sure you can blame that on area residents. And their departure from the mall was the one that broke the camels back. 

That is demonstrably false. They were the worst performing Nordstrom in the United States. They barely broke $10 million in their full final year. 

Edited July 28, 2022 by baobabs727

[metalman]

Baltimore is not the shining city on the hill.  It’s school system is more atrocious than Norfolks, crime rate is terrible and dangerous, homelessness is rampant downtown, the politics…fahgedaboudit .

No one has to tell me that Norfolk has its problems- school system, violent crime, infrastructure…but B’more is so much worse.

Edited July 31, 2022 by metalman
Spelling

[BFG]

I've said before that Baltimore is a larger Norfolk, but only in terms of layout and architecture. The similarities end there. When I visited in  May 2016, I definitely saw a few similarities.

[BeagleAccountant]

2 hours ago, baobabs727 said:

That is demonstrably false. They were the worst performing Nordstrom in the United States. They barely broke $10 million in their full final year. 

Apologies, I was working from memory and my timeline was way off. It was years before they closed. We lived in the same building in 2012 to 2014 and at the time it was performing at that level. I'm also guessing the performance she was referring to was net revenues where their performance likely shined thanks to their discounted lease at MacArthur.

[brikkman]

23 hours ago, metalman said:

Baltimore is not the shining city on the hill.  It’s school system is more atrocious than Norfolks, crime rate is terrible and dangerous, homelessness is rampant downtown, the politic…hagedaboudit.

No one has to tell me that Norfolk has its problems- school system, violent crime, infrastructure…but B’more is so much worse.

I was going to jump in and comment, but you nailed it. I live in bmore county. Every you said is 100% accurate and probably understated.

[BFG]

I’m in Denver this week. My hotel overlooks an area that looks like what I think SPQ will be in a few years. A mix of apartments and condos/townhouses. Right now I’m trying to envision how the picture below would look next to downtown. Not exactly what you’d see along Greenbrier Parkway, but it does have suburban vibes. 

Last night I went to a food hall that I’m guessing used to be a warehouse. It disappoints me that Granby Station never came to fruition, but it also made me realize that there’s definitely potential for a food hall elsewhere in an old warehouse, maybe over in Park Place or the Neon District. The food hall I went to last night is what Waterside should’ve been IMO.

[mintscraft56]

11 hours ago, BFG said:

I’m in Denver this week. My hotel overlooks an area that looks like what I think SPQ will be in a few years. A mix of apartments and condos/townhouses. Right now I’m trying to envision how the picture below would look next to downtown. Not exactly what you’d see along Greenbrier Parkway, but it does have suburban vibes. 

Last night I went to a food hall that I’m guessing used to be a warehouse. It disappoints me that Granby Station never came to fruition, but it also made me realize that there’s definitely potential for a food hall elsewhere in an old warehouse, maybe over in Park Place or the Neon District. The food hall I went to last night is what Waterside should’ve been IMO.

Its not bad at all, but I hope to God that SPQ will have at least a little more density than pictured here. 

[BFG]

I think we get a little more mid rise back home; by comparison I’m technically in suburban Denver. Downtown is about 15-20 minutes away from here.