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409 North Magnolia [Under Construction]


sunshine

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Yeah, Hampton Inn is the bottom rung, the kind you find at every other Interstate exit. Hilton Garden is about the same, but more mid-range, focused more on business travelers, less ubiquitous and carries the Hilton name and Home2 Suites is an "extended stay" lower level brand, so it is targeted to more long-term guests. I would say the newly announced flags are slightly higher on the totem pole than Hampton Inn & Suites.

Edited by dcluley98
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  • 1 month later...

Here's my issue with this project (and I'm going to continue calling out this type of short sided planning I see the city  partake in they until they begin to take long range planning seriously). There is no place for surface level parking lots in downtown. Full stop. If we want to grow up as a city, if Mayor Demmings and Mayor Dyer are serious about a transportation plan to help further our regions mobility, connectivity, and competitiveness we have GOT to do away with surface level parking lots in the CBD. It's an affront to urbanism and a detriment to any serious efforts to change the public's mindset on transportation (which will be centered around cars for the foreseeable future) in the Orlando region. At the very least take a look at a map. One block north you have Geneva place, a small, alley type street that can  run down this block and connect with Livingston St, providing an  enter and egress point for deliveries, hidden, multi-story parking lots, and other mundane uses.   WHY HAVE A CAR POINT OF ENTRY ON MAGNOLIA? Ruining a potentially beautiful street wall?! You can be sure all those property owners between Travelodge and Amelia are courting developers to buy there land, and what will we have then? More car entry points on Magnolia, or another SUPER, HALF BLOCK SIZED TOWER that distorts scale and perpetuates our stocky, stubby skyline.  We need more streets downtown, we need smaller blocks.  Can someone complain on my behalf as i'm not in the state right now.  I can't wait to move back and raise hell at every appearance review board meeting.

 

Edited by SantiStark
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I agree with your broader premise, but there's no real practical way to extend Geneva south, and the parking is largely hidden with even rooms over the driveway.  And this lot is practically the last lot besides the church before you hit 1/2-story residential Lake Eola Heights... so don't think this is really the hill to take a stand on.

I'm happy to raise hell, I did during the Diocese effort a few months ago, but I'm a believer that if everything's a fire, nothing is a fire. 

Also, Welcome to the forums!

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I do believe there is a perfectly easy way to extend Geneva south, acquiring easements from property owners and plowing through some surface parking and  a couple grassy bits, it would be a rather small alley too. If you look at Trinity Church's original expansion plan here, they were planning on putting a little road there in the first place too. One of the hindrances to it being straight is, from what I can tell, was the travelodge property, why not rectify it now?

 Also, I'm looking at Magnolia, and this general area, from a North to South perspective, not east to west. Obviously height limits aren't changing in the Lake Eola district, but I envision decent height and mixed use along Magnolia in a couple years. With the last empty lots on Orange quickly being developed , Radius under construction, and the Sentinel blocks still in play,  N-S Magnolia/Robinson to N.Orange Ave is prime to be central arterial (rivaling Orange ave) in a couple years.  And what a shame it will be if up and down Magnolia we have driveway after driveway breaking up the urban form.

Overall, I just think the mindset has to change. Parking needs to become more difficult to find, people need to start making less, short distanced trips,  VMTS have to go down, developers need to know that surface level parking, hidden or not, will not be acceptable downtown anymore (pipe dream I know but maybe if we had a more progressive mayor it wouldn't be). Minneapolis, Seattle, Portland, etc. etc. did not get to where they are today without first taking baby steps.

And thank you! Sorry I just worked a 10 hour day and was in.. a mood lol. 

Edited by SantiStark
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10 minutes ago, SantiStark said:

I do believe there is a perfectly easy way to extend Geneva south, acquiring easements from property owners and plowing through some surface parking and  a couple grassy bits, it would be a rather small alley too. If you look at Trinity Church's original expansion plan here, they were planning on putting a little road there in the first place too. One of the hindrances to it being straight is, from what I can tell, was the travelodge property, why not rectify it now?

 Also, I'm looking at Magnolia, and this general area, from a North to South perspective, not east to west. Obviously height limits aren't changing in the Lake Eola district, but I envision decent height and mixed use along Magnolia in a couple years. With the last empty lots on Orange quickly being developed , Radius under construction, and the Sentinel blocks still in play,  N-S Magnolia/Robinson to N.Orange Ave is prime to be central arterial (rivaling Orange ave) in a couple years.  And what a shame it will be if up and down Magnolia we have driveway after driveway breaking up the urban form.

Overall, I just think the mindset has to change. Parking needs to become more difficult to find, people need to start making less, short distanced trips,  VMTS have to go down, developers need to know that surface level parking, hidden or not, will not be acceptable downtown anymore (pipe dream I know but maybe if we had a more progressive mayor it wouldn't be). Minneapolis, Seattle, Portland, etc. etc. did not get to where they are today without first taking baby steps.

And thank you! Sorry I just worked a 10 hour day and was in.. a mood lol. 

Couldn't agree more! I for one would like parking minimums to go away and let developers build as much parking as demand warrants, as well as charging market rate for Parking, but before any politician promotes such progressive parking policy, we need high quality transit for people to commute into downtown without driving. Portland, Minneapolis, and Seattle all have frequent light rail to travel into their Downtown's. Infrequent weekday only commuter rail won't cut it. 

I also would like Magnolia and Orange to be reduced from 3 to 2 lanes, which would make downtown much more pedestrian friendly as well.

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In some cases eliminating surface parking is easier said than done.

In the case of the proposed Hilton and using Geneva Place as an entrance, there's a lot of private property in between the hotel property and what would be the entry point, that would need to be acquired, and which might well require going to court which could take who knows how long and cost who knows how much. By the time it would take for all of that to transpire, the deal would probably fall through and all just to get rid of a surface parking lot you can't see from any street anyway.

As for the rest of downtown, I think they're doing about as good of a job of replacing surface lots with garages in new development as can be expected. I think the real "problem" if you want to to call it that, is that development in downtown is just not happening that fast so a lot of the surface lots that have been there for decades, continue to sit there looking ugly.

But some projects, like the hotel, are small enough scale that they don't require a garage and/or are situated in such a way as to mitigate any unappealing aspects of surface parking.

Everything can't always conform 100% to our idea of perfection.

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1 hour ago, sunshine said:

Because this is Orlando, everytime I suggest putting minimum parking in any developments to force people to use public transports or walk or bike or Uber, people in this forum think I am crazy or wanting business to fail.

Don’t you think if most people in Orlando wanted to use public transportation, they’d move to a city that better supports it? I don’t think you can force anyone to do anything. If they don’t want to walk or bike, they’ll simply go somewhere else that offers what they prefer to do. I don’t know that Orlando residents want to use public transportation, even if it were readily available.

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7 minutes ago, Uncommon said:

Don’t you think if most people in Orlando wanted to use public transportation, they’d move to a city that better supports it? I don’t think you can force anyone to do anything. If they don’t want to walk or bike, they’ll simply go somewhere else that offers what they prefer to do. I don’t know that Orlando residents want to use public transportation, even if it were readily available.

Chicken and egg given or lack of acceptable transit.   That said, removing parking requirements doesn’t force anything.  It allows the market to respond in a way it can’t now.  Maybe nothing would change but I have a feeling it would.  Besides, Freedom!

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3 minutes ago, Jernigan said:

Chicken and egg given or lack of acceptable transit.   That said, removing parking requirements doesn’t force anything.  It allows the market to respond in a way it can’t now.  Maybe nothing would change but I have a feeling it would.  Besides, Freedom!

Removing parking doesn’t force anything, I agree, but it might deter some customers. There are days I don’t mind parking pretty far and walking to get to Briarpatch in Winter Park, but other times when I can’t find parking, I simply say screw it and go somewhere else where adequate parking exists, like Canopy Cafe. Never once have I thought of Ubering or parking downtown and taking Sunrail to the WP station. Sorry, but public transportation isn’t in Orlando’s fabric.

I admit, there needs to be better transportation options, especially for those who don’t have a car or can’t drive or for people who just want it. But the chicken-egg conversation will probably never be answered, especially when you consider there are only a handful of U.S. cities where public transportation isn’t stigmatized as being for poor people.

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58 minutes ago, Uncommon said:

Removing parking doesn’t force anything, I agree, but it might deter some customers. There are days I don’t mind parking pretty far and walking to get to Briarpatch in Winter Park, but other times when I can’t find parking, I simply say screw it and go somewhere else where adequate parking exists, like Canopy Cafe. Never once have I thought of Ubering or parking downtown and taking Sunrail to the WP station. Sorry, but public transportation isn’t in Orlando’s fabric.

I admit, there needs to be better transportation options, especially for those who don’t have a car or can’t drive or for people who just want it. But the chicken-egg conversation will probably never be answered, especially when you consider there are only a handful of U.S. cities where public transportation isn’t stigmatized as being for poor people.

Right but again I wouldn’t say the city should step in and say “you can’t build parking” but if CVS wants to build a store and not have parking why should they have to build it.  Especially when the DTO Walgreens doesn’t have to have it?   Of course they’ll lose some customers but isn’t that their perogitive?

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3 hours ago, sunshine said:

Because this is Orlando, everytime I suggest putting minimum parking in any developments to force people to use public transports or walk or bike or Uber, people in this forum think I am crazy or wanting business to fail.

I'm going to have to invoke "correlation does not imply causation" here.  That's not why.

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2 hours ago, Jernigan said:

Right but again I wouldn’t say the city should step in and say “you can’t build parking” but if CVS wants to build a store and not have parking why should they have to build it.  Especially when the DTO Walgreens doesn’t have to have it?   Of course they’ll lose some customers but isn’t that their perogitive?

Is the city now requiring smaller businesses like CVS et al to build parking? Are any small, stand alone businesses even being proposed for DTO? As far as I know, businesses that size always lease space out of much larger developments which have their own parking anyway or old, existing buildings.

Either way, that's what municipal garages are for and people expect to walk a little bit when they come downtown.

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there's enough parking ala garages and surface to mandate that stores just build to the sidewalk or just lease in an existing building and be done with it.  Walgreens is perfect how it is.  There's no reason any other retailer would or should suffer for lack of parking spaces they have to provide.

Is this what is keeping to lot at Pine & Orange from getting developed?

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