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Rowe Hotel


GRDadof3

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Can we all agree that if GR is to get any other highrises they will be on the Vandenburg, GR Press, or the Post office if the planets align in our favor?

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Yes, or if they were built in one of the surface parking lots (Lyon/Ottawa, Lyon/ Monroe, Market/Fulton), that would be okay, too. ;)

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Would that be a jazzed up "Morton Place"  B)

I thought it looked a lot like a tall version of the Rowe  ;)

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yes thats what I meant. blah why do I keep calling it monroe center?

but to me that picture looks like someone stuck a cap on top of morton place and added a bunch of lights to it :P which wouldnt be a bad idea either.

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I agree that it should be a retail center, at least on the ground floor.  There could be residential above though.  It would be a good anchor for folks who lived in RiverHouse and Monroe North.  A hotel would be okay too, but we already have one of those going up, so who knows if there is enough demand to fill it.

Ideally, Rowe would stay and be renovated, the post office would be demolished developed into some fantastic mixed use high-rise :D .  The current location of the Press across the street should also be demolished and replaced with something (anything) better than what is currently there.

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Id say a new retail/office tower with the Press buying offices in the tower.

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Id say a new retail/office tower with the Press buying offices in the tower.

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Also, bring Steelcase on down to fill up the rest of the space. They are shedding all of their manufacturing space by the corporate campus. Why not make a clean sweep of it and move the HQ downtown. I have to believe that the city would do everything it can, ie - tax breaks, to keep them in the city.

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I really don't understand the whole "height is everything" spirit that many members of this forum seem to promote. Perhaps someone can explain it to me.

I'm just not sold on the argument that every building has to be tall to be cool. I really like a balance of old and new, glass and brick, tall and short, etc.

well downtown is supposed to have tall buildings. all the buildings we have dt right now are already short and "cool". every dt has to have some tall, plain buildings. we need some. i just want something over 40 feet, and we need a tall building further east, so the norht-south view isnt so boring

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I think there has to be a good mix like allbusiness says, but I think GR needs more tall buildings too. We have few buildings that are beyond 10 stories. I don't think we need twenty huge buildings, but 6-8 ranging from 25-40 stories would make for a pretty sweet skyline. B) The important thing is that they have nice street level facades and aren't blank-walled.

Besides, tall buildings are freakin sweet! Look how excited we all get when anything taller than 12 stories is proposed! :P

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^see, exactly!

Anways, I thought one apsect of architecture was that of appealing to the community. Why not build something jaw dropping to uplift the the people of GR?

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Can we all agree that we all like high-rises, but done sensibly ;)

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Can we all agree that we all like high-rises, but done sensibly  ;)

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Absolutely. All I really want is space for retail and whatnot on the ground floor, built to the street, and lots of windows. I dont think that's asking a whole lot, is it?

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Absolutely.  All I really want is space for retail and whatnot on the ground floor, built to the street, and lots of windows.  I dont think that's asking a whole lot, is it?

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You summed up my stance perfectly as well. This is what defines a truly world class city, ie - Chicago, New York, San Francisco, etc.

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You summed up my stance perfectly as well.  This is what defines a truly world class city, ie - Chicago, New York, San Francisco, etc.

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Yup. The cities with crappy downtowns (i.e. Detroit minus Greektown) have huge buildings, but the're isn't much going on at ground level and there is a ton of surface parking everywhere. GR definitely needs to steer away from that.

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Can we all agree that we all like high-rises, but done sensibly  ;)

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But not just for the sake of being tall, and definitely not at the expense of something that's not tall, but could be renovated and maintained in its present historic form. Would anyone have wanted to see all the structures along north Monroe bulldozed and replaced by a virtual wall of high rise glass and steel? (OK, some probably would...)

But, what a soul-less corridor that would be.

I am all in favor of height when it replaces a parking ramp, or a concrete mass from the 60s or 70s.

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I am all in favor of height when it replaces a parking ramp, or a concrete mass from the 60s or 70s.

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Don't let Rebecca Smith-Hoffman and her Past Perfect nazis hear you say that. Those 60s and 70s era buildings are worth saving because they have decided they may be historic in another 100 years.

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But not just for the sake of being tall, and definitely not at the expense of something that's not tall, but could be renovated and maintained in its present historic form.  Would anyone have wanted to see all the structures along north Monroe bulldozed and replaced by a virtual wall of high rise glass and steel?

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I think thats the point of him saying "sensibly" thats really not being sensible.

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ok I'll concede on this point, I am all for historic beauty, and I'm definately for hieght bringing a small bit of status for G-Rap. But hieght alone sucks. Look at Southfield, Inbound on the 696 southfield looks like it could be a major city. It has dozens of high rises. but has anyone spent anytime at the southfield town center? All of those buildings are taller than anything in Grand Rapids. When you get right up to it, it's just an office park with hieght, to use the words of someone earlier, soul-less.

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ok I'll concede on this point,  I am all for historic beauty, and I'm definately for hieght bringing a small bit of status for G-Rap.  But hieght alone sucks.  Look at Southfield, Inbound on the 696 southfield looks like it could be a major city.  It has dozens of high rises.  but has anyone spent anytime at the southfield town center?  All of those buildings are taller than anything in Grand Rapids.  When you get right up to it, it's just an office park with hieght, to use the words of someone earlier, soul-less.

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Precisely MJLO. Southfield looks somewhat impressive from the highway (altough even some of those are looking outdated, like the American Center), but when you get up to those buildings at ground level (if you can maneuver the bizarre pedestrian-hostile street layout tangled around the massive 696/Lodge/Northwestern interchange), a lot of them are on big open characterless plazas, no people in site, just big parking lots and benches with no-one sitting in them (sort of like Calder, doh!). blech!

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Precisely MJLO.  Southfield looks somewhat impressive from the highway (altough even some of those are looking outdated, like the American Center), but when you get up to those buildings at ground level (if you can maneuver the bizarre pedestrian-hostile street layout tangled around the massive 696/Lodge/Northwestern interchange), a lot of them are on big open characterless plazas, no people in site, just big parking lots and benches with no-one sitting in them (sort of like Calder, doh!).  blech!

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Yah, we can't wipe out everything under 8 stories and replace them with 40 story monstrosities. The towers in Southfield are a good example of what NOT to do: build huge buildings and surround them with parking lots and a few single-story shacks. But I (and many other forumers I think) feel that GR is under-represented by its downtown. There is a lot of economic might and a lot of people in the area, but if you were driving through downtown you wouldn't necessarily think that there are almost a million people in the metro area. Turning some of our parking lots into tall buildings ( 25-40 stories) would help make our downtown "fit" the city itself. I actually like the fact that we have a lot of old buildings under 10 stories. It makes downtown more comfortable IMO.

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But I (and many other forumers I think) feel that GR is under-represented by its downtown.

GR has about 1.3 Million in the new seven county MSA. What are some comparable skylines to other cities in this range?

I think by number of +20 story buildings you are right that we have less than other cities this size, but I think we have a large urban business district area by comparison. It goes from Leonard to Wealthy and hopefully will be extending further north after the water treatment center re-use opens. I think thats actually pretty big.

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GR has about 1.3 Million in the new seven county MSA. What are some comparable skylines to other cities in this range?

I think by number of +20 story buildings you are right that we have less than other cities this size, but I think we have a large urban business district area by comparison. It goes from Leonard to Wealthy and hopefully will be extending further north after the water treatment center re-use opens.  I think thats actually pretty big.

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The cites closest to GR in size are Oklahoma City, Louisville, Buffalo, Memphis, Jacksonville, West Palm Beach, Richmond, Syracuse

heres a handy dandy list: http://www.census.gov/population/cen2000/phc-t3/tab03.txt

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