Charlotte Parks - the big picture...

[KJHburg]

I think the Panther practice fields currently on S Cedar Street on property owned by the county and city should remain a park.  There is a good sized park with playing fields and you could redo some of the other areas to make a nice park.  

[NYtoCLT]

With the discussion of expanding Independence Park, is there a reason no one has discussed expanding into the space occupied by Kings University?  It shut its doors and directly borders the park.  

[Guest]

22 hours ago, kermit said:

^ I think we all know that this site has a healthy mix of both gay and straight men (but no one else).

I can understand why women's voices are rare here (we can diverge into boys club stuff). Its a shame since views of urban issue vary significantly by gender.

/steps off soapbox/

I could tag three women who post on this board, but I will let them keep their anonymity. 

 

Edited March 14, 2019 by Guest

[teeg]

1 hour ago, NYtoCLT said:

With the discussion of expanding Independence Park, is there a reason no one has discussed expanding into the space occupied by Kings University?  It shut its doors and directly borders the park.  

Already sold.  

[Sigma]

I love this idea, I find memorial stadium to be vastly underused and is a maintenance cost.  Heck, the topography would make it rather easy to dam up and make a pond lake where memorial currently is (see attached).

I'm not sure how to overcome Hawthorne and Charlottetown whether tunnels (which your average person finds sketchy) to bridges (which are costly).   But i think this whole stretch could be something pretty awesome with some cleanup, modernization, connectivity, and a larger water feature or lawn where the stadium is.  

I just noticed on aerial GIS there are indeed tunnels under both roadways.  

Edited March 14, 2019 by Sigma

[Scribe]

An article in the observer about more Greenway funding reminded me of an excursion to the Town of Matthews in May... (the article: https://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/local/article231307488.html )

We were invited to join some friends for a weekend of "house hunting"... apparently Zillow is for losers, and you have to do the whole "open house weekend experience".

So, we busted out Google Maps and tried to plan the list of 4 or 5 houses they wanted to see. As we were going from one house to the next, we noticed a park that was under renovation. The park looked old and they were replacing the playground equipment. Friends were excited (as they have kids in elementary school), the park was not outlined in green on the map and did not have a pin on the map until you zoomed in more. The park is called Baucom Park.

By the end of the day we found 3 parks within a 1 mile radius that would not show up on the maps unless you zoomed way into the neighborhood. All of those parks were accessible through the Four Mile Creek (North Fork) Greenway. (obviously not listing the parks that are visible on the map)

1. Baucom Park - with brand new playground equipment replacing the old one.
2. Country Place Park - corner of Country Place Dr and Trade Street. Green space with trails and benches.
3. Fountain Rock Park - accessible only from the greenway - has a fountain with benches, etc.

• Lastly, they are actively working on the Trade St connection for the greenway to continue towards Weddington Rd.

Oh, those parks are not on ParkScore either... https://parkserve.tpl.org/mapping/index.html?CityID=PS3712000

[SgtCampsalot]

7 hours ago, Scribe said:

 

1. Baucom Park - with brand new playground equipment replacing the old one.
2. Country Place Park - corner of Country Place Dr and Trade Street. Green space with trails and benches.
3. Fountain Rock Park - accessible only from the greenway - has a fountain with benches, etc.

• Lastly, they are actively working on the Trade St connection for the greenway to continue towards Weddington Rd.

 

1) When I was a toddler I have vivid memories of scooping sand at that park in those backhoe looking scooper seat things. Cute park! 

2) That is new! Wow, they've really done up that "gateway"into downtown ever since the Plantation Estates expansion completed... About as much as they can since they widened the road... 

3) That must be new, too. The pics online for that look exactly like the expty stretch of that Greenway I would run every day 7 years ago - when I last was in residence in Matthews. That's so cool they're filling in the Greenway with pocket parks. 

Edited June 12, 2019 by SgtCampsalot

[CLT>]

 

 

 

On 6/11/2019 at 3:33 PM, Scribe said:

 Oh, those parks are not on ParkScore either... https://parkserve.tpl.org/mapping/index.html?CityID=PS3712000

ParkScore only includes Mecklenburg County-owned parks, The town of Matthews runs their own park system, hence them not appearing. Last year's scoring only included the ones in the city limits, but they've added the ones outside as well, but just for areas adjacent to the Charlotte city limits.

[Scribe]

14 hours ago, CLT> said:

ParkScore only includes Mecklenburg County-owned parks,

... and you've just revealed reason 529 why ParkScore is @#$%^%$# ... if you think that is a reasonable excuse for any organization to exclude relevant data from their data set, I've got some swampland to sell in Florida!   (ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swampland_in_Florida )

Quote

The town of Matthews runs their own park system, hence them not appearing. Last year's scoring only included the ones in the city limits, but they've added the ones outside as well, but just for areas adjacent to the Charlotte city limits.

Somewhere either in this thread we've discussed that they clearly use the Meck county data set for info on the parks, but the parks in Matthews and Mint Hill are ALL public parks.

Also, their interactive map clearly shows they mean the entire Meck County... and all the parks mentioned above are clearly within the county limits.

[KJHburg]

Here is a drone video of the new Mecklenburg County Eastway Recreation Center off Eastway near LYNX line.  From the Twitter

 

[hambone931]

New bike rack at my neighborhood park

[chrisp]

https://www.charlotteagenda.com/186266/220-acre-version-of-new-york-citys-central-park-proposed-for-a-longstanding-north-charlotte-rail-yard/

 

This would be AWESOME! Yes, please!!

[ajfunder]

This will be a hard sell to NS. They have four directional routes that converge at the current yard location, the P&N transfer, and the CSX Transfer. I'm all for moving the yard out to the airport but the likelihood of that happening is low. NS wanted a new intermodal ramp, they usually only do projects they want, hence why they worked with the City. I'm not sure what's in it for them here.

[jole]

Charlotte Agenda reporting on proposal for massive 220 acre park where the railyard is east of downtown https://www.charlotteagenda.com/186266/220-acre-version-of-new-york-citys-central-park-proposed-for-a-longstanding-north-charlotte-rail-yard/

 

Edited November 14, 2019 by jole

[Guest]

This is a concept we have been talking about since 2003 on this board. UP moves mountains.

[Guest]

 

Would love it if folks would vote, and put in their suggestion for names. I have direct contact with the stakeholders. 

[ertley]

I think the idea of Queen's Park is terrific, but it seems as if it's such a dream, and will be so hard to achieve, and there is abundant available (or soon to be) land that the city--and not a railroad company--is sitting on that could be converted to parkland in a MUCH shorter timeframe, and for cheaper.

There are *so* many opportunities to create additional park acreage, small, medium and large, in Charlotte that are being ignored in the pursuit of capitalization. Specifically, I'm talking about the Housing Authority land that's being cleared, here, there and yonder. If even half of what's currently cleared--and what's going to be in the future--were dedicated as park space, Charlotte would leap rapidly ahead in those rankings of per capita green space and accessibility. Let me state that I'm an advocate of affordable housing and making sure that any families displaced by redeveloped need to be guaranteed new housing, at a minimum; but these old developments are sprawling, as well all know, and new developments can house the same number of people on a fraction of land. But it doesn't seem like providing park space is actually a priority of the City Council, at least when there's any short term gains in revenue to be had instead. 

If you want a large, 100 acre (or so) park at least approaching the scale of the new Dorothea Dix in Raleigh or New York's Central Park, one area that has opportunity to (eventually) coalesce into green space on such a scale is SW South End. The Brookhill housing complex is being gradually demolished, and a significant portion of it--again, even just half (well, maybe two thirds)--could be dedicated to park space. Specifically, make southern portion directly across Remount from the already existing Southside Park the new park space. Let the land north and east of Brookhill Road be redeveloped. What's below Southside Park? Another mid-20th century public housing complex that's almost certainly slated for removal at some point. Again--because I'm definitely an advocate of affordable housing--you only have to devote half of these lands to new parks, but if you take half--the western half--of the Southside Homes land, you double or triple the size of Southside Park. You then have contiguous green space, only separated by Remount (and even Central Park has east/west streets traversing it) stretching from Brookhill/Dunavant roads (FYI they're planning on extending Dunavant across Tryon and curving it up to West Tremont) all the way down to Griffith.

What's directly on the other side of 77? The Revolution Park golf course, and behind it, Clanton Park. It wouldn't be impossible to engineer and build one large or a couple smaller pedestrian crossings above 77 to connect these areas, with each part a different "zone" with different amenities, so that the separations aren't as problematic. I would say the Brookhill section is a community park, with playground(s) for children, green spaces for playing and lounging, and a dog park. Then south of Remount you make more sports-oriented with soccer fields and basketball courts. And throughout you weave a greenway that culminates with a more natural area, Clanton Park. 

And, in the scenario I presented, you still have the eastern half of these housing complexes, adjoining South Tryon, available for mixed used, TOD, with affordable housing incorporated, to broaden that tax base. 

And what about the Eastland Mall site? If you're someone who thinks the park issue is of primary importance, then why don't we just have that made into a park for the east side of Charlotte? To me, the Eastland site plans belie the fact that the city is foremost about development--of buildings and broadening its tax base--and thinks of the parks issue as negligible, because it's perfectly suited for being transformed into a park, if you think parks are needed.  I just don't think the city *really* cares, not at least as a priority.  

[ertley]

I decided to try and provide a visualization of what I'm talking about... Green obviously represents the park areas; Orange shows the blocks facing Tryon and Tremont, and also adjoining the new park, available for TOD and mixed use development; Black indicates existing streets to be kept; Red indicates new streets or extensions proposed by me--the city's intended extension of Dunavant is shown in a red/purple combination; Purple represents the existing Irwin Creek greenway, and the the purple dots represent its extension into the new park; I denoted the Blue Line in light blue and of course Irwin Creek and the Barringer lake are in other blues.

I didn't block out the golf course in park green, but obviously it's included, and if you can visualize as a constituent element of the greater park, that's a huge swath of green right in the city--and then of course Revolution Park is to the north on the other side of Remount west of 77...

I decided the best way to connect the east and west segments of the park AND increase neighborhood connectivity is to construct a car as well as pedestrian bridge extending Griffith and connecting it to Manchester*, which creates a good, contiguous southern border to the park. Also, both Barringer Elementary and Marie Davis Middle schools would be directly adjacent this big urban park and could have full access to its amenities including basketball and tennis courts, soccer fields, etc...   

 

*Connecting Griffith and Manchester creates a continuous neighborhood street loop that ultimately ends/begins as Poindexter on Park Rd. and--if Manchester is also connected to Pressley at their terminuses, just separated by a small park--then re-crosses 77 and intersects with South Tryon at Yancey, which of course heads over to South Boulevard. So I call the construction of this bridge a two birds with one stone situation... 

Edited November 14, 2019 by ertley

[Guest]

25 minutes ago, ertley said:

I decided to try and provide a visualization of what I'm talking about... Green obviously represents the park areas; Orange shows the blocks facing Tryon and Tremont, and also adjoining the new park, available for TOD and mixed use development; Black indicates existing streets to be kept; Red indicates new streets or extensions proposed by me--the city's intended extension of Dunavant is shown in a red/purple combination; Purple represents the existing Irwin Creek greenway, and the the purple dots represent its extension into the new park; I denoted the Blue Line in light blue and of course Irwin Creek and the Barringer lake are in other blues.

I didn't block out the golf course in park green, but obviously it's included, and if you can visualize as a constituent element of the greater park, that's a huge swath of green right in the city--and then of course Revolution Park is to the north on the other side of Remount west of 77...

I decided the best way to connect the east and west segments of the park AND increase neighborhood connectivity is to construct a car as well as pedestrian bridge extending Griffith and connecting it to Manchester*, which creates a good, contiguous southern border to the park. Also, both Barringer Elementary and Marie Davis Middle schools would be directly adjacent this big urban park and could have full access to its amenities including basketball and tennis courts, soccer fields, etc...   

 

*Connecting Griffith and Manchester creates a continuous neighborhood street loop that ultimately ends/begins as Poindexter on Park Rd. and--if Manchester is also connected to Pressley at their terminuses, just separated by a small park--then re-crosses 77 and intersects with South Tryon at Yancey, which of course heads over to South Boulevard. So I call the construction of this bridge a two birds with one stone situation... 

I'd close that golf course and incorporate it. I've thought about this idea a few times. Maybe even here, but definitely on twitter. I think there's a real opportunity. 

[Cpink]

16 minutes ago, ricky_davis_fan_21 said:

I'd close that golf course and incorporate it. I've thought about this idea a few times. Maybe even here, but definitely on twitter. I think there's a real opportunity. 

I'd love this. I also always thought the Southside Park spot would be a great spot for a MLB stadium overlooking the skyline! 

[Guest]

24 minutes ago, Cpink said:

I'd love this. I also always thought the Southside Park spot would be a great spot for a MLB stadium overlooking the skyline! 

the optics of replacing public housing with a stadium, that sounds rough. And this is coming from a person who wrote an article suggesting Brookhill should be an option for a new Panthers Stadium. The Agenda Facebook page was en Fuego with comments. 

Edited November 14, 2019 by Guest

[Cpink]

7 minutes ago, ricky_davis_fan_21 said:

the optics of replacing public housing with a stadium, that sounds rough. And this is coming from a person who wrote an article suggesting Brookhill should be an option for a new Panthers Stadium. The Agenda Facebook page was en Fuego with comments. 

Facebook comments are always fun to sort through on there - did you see their post on the "Queens Park" and the comments?

 

Anyway, I agree that Brookhill would be a great location for the new Panthers stadium as well. Then in the future, they could demolish the BOA stadium and put in an MLB stadium.  SUPER wishful thinking! 

[Nick2]

9 minutes ago, ricky_davis_fan_21 said:

the optics of replacing public housing with a stadium, that sounds rough. And this is coming from a person who wrote an article suggesting Brookhill should be an option for a new Panthers Stadium. The Agenda Facebook page was en Fuego with comments. 

The public housing is pretty dilapidated and super low density for the area. Couldn't they build a few mid rise apartment buildings beside a new stadium including approximately the same number of units of public housing?

[Guest]

8 minutes ago, Nick2 said:

The public housing is pretty dilapidated and super low density for the area. Couldn't they build a few mid rise apartment buildings beside a new stadium including approximately the same number of units of public housing?

You could build 40x as much probably. Density there is very low.

[Nick2]

3 hours ago, ricky_davis_fan_21 said:

You could build 40x as much probably. Density there is very low.

I just looked it up and you're right, literally! Lol

It's 39 acres for only 410 units.