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Canal Front/City Dock


emerging.me

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The State has a story with details on the new plan for the Canal Front project -- formerly called City Dock. I swear they're lurking in here and taking cues on what to cover. :)

The name change comes because the dock portion has been nixed. No more tour boats on the canal due to safety concerns related to the nearby hydro plant. Maybe it's necessary, but that's crappy. This is something that's been talked about for years and it's a shame it won't be realized.

Another change that's troubling to me is that they've nixed the idea of restaurants for now. They're saying they can retrofit it later with restaurant space if needed, so I guess that's good. It's just that without that factor the project looses a bit of pizzazz, IMO.

Here's a blurb:

Canal Front includes a plaza behind EdVenture, a pavilion and a promenade. The wide pavilion will house a police substation, restrooms and storage for pushcarts, which will replace a row of three restaurants originally envisioned there.

The pavilion will complete the children

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I wanted to add...

I think parks are great, but we are in danger of turning the riverfront in Columbia -- our greatest community asset -- into kind of a one-trick pony. Okay maybe two-trick if CanalSide is realized. Said tricks being "parks" and "residential." Somehow we've got to mix it up a little and add some pizzazz and some nightlife and make it a full-fledged destination.

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This would make a nice park and a nice addition to the Greenway. the Cayce-W Cola side is already a destination of sorts. iF you coudl walk over the top of the dam that would be enough of an attraction to draw lots of people. For some reason people like the sound of flowing water :)

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Wow, Columbia actually looks semi-dense from the angle in the artist's rendering. Gives me a whole new appreciation for mid-rises.

Here are some renderings of Des Moines' riverwalk/promenade that I mentioned in the Columbia developments thread; I'm envisioning something like this for Columbia:

walkway490.jpg

courtavewest2.gif

rinksummer.jpg

I only wish the city could have a pedestrian bridge as cool as the one in the background of the last picture.

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  • 4 months later...
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The latest on this. Taken from the Columbia Star:

Shawn Epps , special projects administrator, and Steve Gantt , assistant city manager, described changes and value engineering under way in the design of the canal walk near EdVenture Museum. The first design prime contractor has been released, and the new design prime contractor is the city staff. The sub-contractors for the most part remain in the project. Construction can commence next spring, 2007. Also, the design and the pre-construction phases of the CanalSide Esplanade have about four- to-six months left before the city is ready for construction bids.

I'm glad this project is starting to see the light of day.

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the city is heading the design team??? That is never good.

They're not heading it. They got in touch with the different entities that had already done the design work, after they got rid of whatever company or whoever they got rid of. Some permitting has to redone, as well as some engineering. There are some minor design changes. It is a very complicated project, Anne Sinclair said. She also said the project will be worth the wait. She is dying to see it done, but the complications made the delay unavoidable. She called Canal Front and the esplanade the premier spot on Columbia's side of the river. She must have forgotten about the immense riverfront park that Andrew Sorensen and the Guignards are putting together. We are talking about a major, major riverfront for everyone to enjoy. Waiting for it is very hard.

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They're not heading it. They got in touch with the different entities that had already done the design work, after they got rid of whatever company or whoever they got rid of. Some permitting has to redone, as well as some engineering. There are some minor design changes. It is a very complicated project, Anne Sinclair said. She also said the project will be worth the wait. She is dying to see it done, but the complications made the delay unavoidable. She called Canal Front and the esplanade the premier spot on Columbia's side of the river. She must have forgotten about the immense riverfront park that Andrew Sorensen and the Guignards are putting together. We are talking about a major, major riverfront for everyone to enjoy. Waiting for it is very hard.

AMEN...waiting for ALL of these exciting things is VERY hard. They're still 4 to 6 months away from construction bids??? Good lord, are these things this slow EVERYWHERE? Or are the red tape/political BS slowing us down, as usual?

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They're not heading it. They got in touch with the different entities that had already done the design work, after they got rid of whatever company or whoever they got rid of. Some permitting has to redone, as well as some engineering. There are some minor design changes. It is a very complicated project, Anne Sinclair said. She also said the project will be worth the wait. She is dying to see it done, but the complications made the delay unavoidable. She called Canal Front and the esplanade the premier spot on Columbia's side of the river. She must have forgotten about the immense riverfront park that Andrew Sorensen and the Guignards are putting together. We are talking about a major, major riverfront for everyone to enjoy. Waiting for it is very hard.

sounds like they fired the lead and hired all the sub-consultants directly. Just makes me nervous when those types of things go on. I'm assuming the City is coordinating amongst the consultatants if they are filling the role that the lead team member had. I'm hoping for the best, just a little nervous.

AMEN...waiting for ALL of these exciting things is VERY hard. They're still 4 to 6 months away from construction bids??? Good lord, are these things this slow EVERYWHERE? Or are the red tape/political BS slowing us down, as usual?

...and everyone thinks engineering happens overnight...geez...LOL :)

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  • 1 month later...

Now THAT is awesome! Where'd you get the rendering from? It's about time we've seen something about this project. This makes the Kline project's location all the greater.

Now it will be easier to take shots of the largest children's museum in the Southeast from the best vantage point. ;)

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Now THAT is awesome! Where'd you get the rendering from? It's about time we've seen something about this project. This makes the Kline project's location all the greater.

Now it will be easier to take shots of the largest children's museum in the Southeast from the best vantage point. ;)

I hate to disappoint you, Krazeeboi, but I've had that rendering for about least two years. Some changes have been made that a city employee on channel 2 said would not affect the integrity of the project, and now the city expects to begin construction in spring '07.

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I hate to disappoint you, Krazeeboi, but I've had that rendering for about least two years. Some changes have been made that a city employee on channel 2 said would not affect the integrity of the project, and now the city expects to begin construction in spring '07.

Yeah, after viewing the attachment, I saw that it was the same one that was part of the site rendering in the first post in this thread (last year some time). We'll see if the city can stick to the new schedule this time around.

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I feel silly; I just realized that the attachment is a larger version of the original rendering given in the first post. Still, that one was much smaller than the attachment. Can we just get some dirt turned already? :)

I've got a couple of shovels, come on down to Columbia tomorrow and we can turn some dirt down there, lol.

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