Traverse City

[dtown]

Wow. Those street scenes are awesome!

I cant imagine that factory being there now.

[Ka3kab]

All right. I don't know if I have talked about this before on here, but for the last few years the University of Michigan and Michigan State University engineering students were asked to come up with some plans for the bayfront in downtown Traverse City. As far as I know, there have never been visuals available to the public. Finally, there are.

There are three ideas.

The first one is called "The Big Move" and, in my opinion, is the best concept. It is also probebly the most expensive, so we'll see. It involes moving the Grandview Parkway below grade and adding a couple of land bridges for access to the waterfront. It also involves building an amphitheater, a skating rink, parking deck, aquarium, beach house, an expanded marina, new stalls at the Farmers Market and putting up mix-use infill.

The second is called "String of Pearls" and is by far, again in my opinion, the absolute worst idea I have ever heard. This one mostly involves creating round-a-bouts (traffic circles) at each intersection along the Parkway. This one also calls for a skating rink and amphitheater along with some gardens and a greenhouse. It would also reuse the now closed zoo turning the building into something yet to be determined. There is also more focus put on the Boardman River with an expanded boardwalk and repairing the riparian edges.

The third idea is called "The Green Scheme". This one, as the name implies would add a whole lot of more environmental friendly areas to the park. It calls for moving the Parkway a little south, utilizing Bay St. as the eastbound lanes and building a new lane for westbound traffic. The original parkway would be destroyed and turned into more park area. They would also build gardens, ponds and greenhouses. This plan would also restore the riparian edges of the river, make a area for whitewater kayaking (I'm not real sure how, the river moves at about four mph) restore the wetland edges of the river and bay and add a rain garden.

Some good ideas are in all of these plans, but just like everything else, it is all dependent on money. So we'll see if any of this ever happens.

Here is the link to the plans.

City of Traverse City

[dtown]

The first one is the best, but the 2nd one also looks really cool and is more realistic. But, if they can get the funds to put the parkway belw grade, then i say: do it. The third one also has some really cool ideas that id like to see incorporated in to the other plans, ie: the rain gardens.

Edited May 6, 2007 by dtown

[wertent]

I like the first one the best but i dont see that happening because of the money that would be needed to move Grandview parrkway under ground. Moving The parkway south would be good but i dont understand where it would go seeing that the boardman river and downtown are directly south of the parkway now.

[Ka3kab]

I figure I will put something up here since nothing has been posted in a while. Maybe you guys remember a few months back I posted a story about a developer wanting to convert an office building on the shore of West Bay in Greilikville into condos and how that was shot down. Well it appears there will be some new life for the building. A local web developer company called OneUpWeb has purchased the building and will use most of the space for thier operation. Good news because the building has been vacant for quite some time now and it really is a nice building.

[dtown]

That is good new. Will thye fill up the whole building?

[Ka3kab]

From what I read, not entirely at first. They will own the entire building though, so I guess they will either be leasing out empty space or leaving it alone for future expansion.

[dtown]

Oh. Well, thats good. Hopefully they will grow larger and hire some more employees.

[Ka3kab]

This is why sometimes I just hate living in Traverse City. First you have a bunch of people not wanting sprawl, which is a good thing, but at the same time they don't want building heights to even be 125 feet. The Traverse City city commision will vote soon on to drop the C-4c Zoning in a small area in downtown (the area bordered mostly by Front St, State St. and Union St.) from the current 125 feet to just 68 feet. On top of that, anything over 60 feet will still require a special-use permit. If you don't want to grow out, shouldn't the obvious alternative be to build up?

[egrguy]

This is why sometimes I just hate living in Traverse City. First you have a bunch of people not wanting sprawl, which is a good thing, but at the same time they don't want building heights to even be 125 feet. The Traverse City city commision will vote soon on to drop the C-4c Zoning in a small area in downtown (the area bordered mostly by Front St, State St. and Union St.) from the current 125 feet to just 68 feet. On top of that, anything over 60 feet will still require a special-use permit. If you don't want to grow out, shouldn't the obvious alternative be to build up?

Eh... that doesn't sound to forward thinking to me. What are the chances it passes?

[wertent]

The NIMBY's are winning in downtown Traverse City.... I wish they would've been more bulldog on the sprawl in Garfield Township

[Ka3kab]

Not too forward thinking at all, I would also say. And they like to proclaim themselves as "New Urbanists". What BS. If I had to place odds on the passages of this ordinance, I would give it 3-1 odds. BTW, this would not effect the two plans already in progress, the Federated builing (at 108 feet) and the Snowden building (at 88 feet) unless they somehow let their respective specail land-use permits expire.

[dtown]

Damn. That is just stupid. Why drop what is already in place if it allows downtown to grow?

[Ka3kab]

Sunny and a mere 88 degrees. Why not take the dog for a walk and snap off a few shots. I forgot my camera bag and ended up with a full card, so I could only get off four shots. These were taken on the southern end of Boardman Lake looking north toward downtown. Plus I threw in some ducks, what the hell, why not. This little park I'm in is off of very busy South Airport Rd. in the Logan's Landing complex. Enjoy.

If you look close at the other end of the lake, you can sort of see the Park Place and some other buildings that line the lake.

And now for some ducks.

[wertent]

Film festival to take over stateTheater

[disconsolate]

i adore traverse city, and up north in general.

i've a few 'traverse city' tees to declare my affection, too.

favorite pasty places, anyone?

[Ka3kab]

I only eat the pasties my Mom and Dad make, other than that I don't think I've ever had one anywhere else. That is kind of wierd because I actually love the damn things.

[dtown]

Mmmmmm, pastys! Those are good.

[egrguy]

Film festival to take over stateTheater

This is great news. Traverse City is on its way to becoming the chic summer city to be hanging out in.

Also, as a side note, the Grand Traverse Resort made USA Today's top family golf places in last week friday's paper.

[Ka3kab]

No pictures yet, but work on the Bank of Northern Michigan is almost wrapped up (for the exterior, anyway) and they have began excavation work for a building that is part of the Federated Properties line-up. This one is the 3 or 4 story building going up on the north side of W. Front St. (across from the old Ford dealership, and next to J&S Hamburg for those familiar with the area.) I'll try to get some shots of both of these, maybe later today.

Other than that, it's a whole lot of not much around here. Being tourist season and all, they don't like to start too many projects until after the Cherry Festival ( only 12 days left).

[jbr12]

I know they had some issues working out the brick details at the parapets of the bank. I think they worked through it and liek you said, should be close to doing interior finish work now

[Ka3kab]

That makes sense. It seems like they got the building up and then took forever to clad it. But yeah, almost done now. Any idea if they will halt construction for the cherry fest.

[Ka3kab]

OK, I will respond to my own post. It said in the Record-Eagle today that while demo work has begun on work at the 3 story Federated site, nobody seems to know when actuall construction will start. That includes the city, county and Federated themselves. It really is a bad time of year right now for projects like these. The cherry festival gets in the way of everything until the 14th of July. I bet sometime after that date everyone will have a better idea.

[wertent]

ka3kab

do you know what they are doing on Munson ave between garfield and downtown..... they have a bunch of house taped off with yellow tape looks like getting ready to be knocked down?

[Ka3kab]

Haven't seen it. I haven't been down that way in a while, now that I'm driving to Interlochen to work now.