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La Fontanelle

GRDadof3

By GRDadof3
in Grand Rapids

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GRDadof3 Ecumenopolis

GRDadof3

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OK, here it is. All you hounds and vultures out there can chew it up, steal it, throw it away, whatever! :D Here is my vision of a downtown retail "village" South of the arena:

74521B30515C11DA980C30BD180B1119.jpg

The name Fontanelle (for those of you without children) is the part of the skull that is the last to fill in on a baby's head. You can actually see the heartbeat "pulsing" at that spot. Hence, the "pulse of the city" would be here. Plus it would be a birth of sorts for other things to come. The word Fontanelle is somewhat endearing for soccer moms, so they would love the name.

The color codes are as follows:

Burgundy: new mixed use building behind ChoiceOne, with retail and entertainment on the ground floor, and living units above with rooftop patios

Orange: Movie theatre

Yellow: Indoor retail complex, 5 floors with Nordstroms or Lord & Taylor, with a sign SCREAMING at people on the S-curve

Purple: Entertainment complex with multiple layered outdoor patios overlooking Ionia and Oakes

Brown: 4 - 5 story residential building with angled patios facing up and down Ionia

Green: sidewalks and green pocket parks

The red arches are where people enter underground parking bunkers :P

You can see I vacated Ottawa, Oakes, and part of Weston to make a ground level green plaza, with the blue things being fountains.

Part of this would also require renovations to the ChoiceOne building and the Anheuser building to allow retail and connect to the project, as well as renovations to 100 Grandville. All of these office tenants would be relocated to the new Lyon-Ottawa Tower

You can also see I finished off the back of the arena for the new NBA expansion team ;)

Eat that, John Wheeler!

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PBJ Burg

PBJ

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I like it.. except when I win the lotto, I think i"m going to make the retail outdoors with a walking type plaza where you've got the yellow, complete with fountains, and heated sidewalks and such, complete with mixed use retail and residential.

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PBJ Burg

PBJ

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Basically all the green is outdoor sidewalks, with a mix of parks, fountains, and indoor/outdoor retail. I just didn't want to color the whole plaza area gray to signify concrete :sick:

Isn't the new Bank of Holland office in the way of your purple?

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snoogit Town

snoogit

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The name Fontanelle (for those of you without children) is the part of the skull that is the last to fill in on a baby's head. You can actually see the heartbeat "pulsing" at that spot.

EEEEEEEEwwwwwww :sick:

I dont know if you will be able to demolish that parkinglot directly behind the VAA, mostly because thats where an expansion would happen if you expanded VAA

I think youd have to tear up that lot labeled 005 on that map.

You can also see I finished off the back of the arena for the new NBA expansion team ;)

oops, didnt see that.

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PBJ Burg

PBJ

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EEEEEEEEwwwwwww :sick:

I dont know if you will be able to demolish that parkinglot directly behind the VAA, mostly because thats where an expansion would happen if you expanded VAA

I think youd have to tear up that lot labeled 005 on that map.

I was thinking about that lot too, but mostly b/c that's where they park a lot of the "Load In" trucks/busses on event nights.

As for 005, I think someone mentioned plans for a 1,000 vehicle parking structure there, so I'm sure with GRDad's plan you could throw a few million at that project to make up spots being taken by "Soft Skull Development"

:rofl:

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GRDadof3 Ecumenopolis

GRDadof3

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Alright, forget the name you guys :lol: I came up with that in about 10 seconds of brainstorming. If you have kids, it's not eewww at all. It's pretty amazing actually. But you're right, it may not have a broad enough appeal. Lot 005 is (I believe) where the 1000 car ramp is going. I was also thinking of maybe leaving Oakes open to through traffic and have curbside parking and ground floor shops. What do you guys think, plaza or open street?

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PBJ Burg

PBJ

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I was also thinking of maybe leaving Oakes open to through traffic and have curbside parking and ground floor shops. What do you guys think, plaza or open street?

I was actually thinking about that yesterday. On one hand it's nice to come off the ramp and be "right downtown", but it would also be nice to break it up with a pedestrian type mall area. Plus, it would force traffic to slow down and turn as opposed to blazing off 131 (which I have admitedly done before). My vote is leaning towards pedestrian.

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GaryP Burg

GaryP

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I really like this plan Jeff. I think undergound parking and replacing the streets with plazas would work very well right there. I think the Nordstroms/Lord and Taylor building should be expanded to occupy the street that reads Business US-131 too. Maybe that intersection could become another ramp into the garage.

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GRDadof3 Ecumenopolis

GRDadof3

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I really like this plan Jeff. I think undergound parking and replacing the streets with plazas would work very well right there. I think the Nordstroms/Lord and Taylor building should be expanded to occupy the street that reads Business US-131 too. Maybe that intersection could become another ramp into the garage.

Hmmm, I'll play around with that idea. I like having the plaza sight-line that you would get just as you exit from Northbound 131, especially with a glass wall on the back of the Arena ;) I was also thinking of having a major entrance on the Nordstom building facing North straight up where Ionia is now to create another visual focal point from the BOB area.

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dbrok Hamlet

dbrok

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From the Regis website.

http://ims.gvmc-regis.org:1052/website/pub...lic_Parcel_Find

You just get your area satellite photo and send it to print. When you get the print screen, just save it to your harddrive. Then I just played around in paint. ;)

It would be nice if Google Maps actually showed downtown. I don't quite understand why they only cover half:

map.jpg

Here's the full screen

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GRDadof3 Ecumenopolis

GRDadof3

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That is irritating dbrok. I don't know why they don't have updated satellite images yet.

Here is my updated "La Fontanelle" :P

2BA26FE0520911DAAAF5412F18F73B1D.jpg

Service areas for the arena would be moved to the underground parking level and would be accessed off of Weston (right by 32 Market/Bistro Bella Vita).

The pink structure is the new parking ramp, with GROUND FLOOR RETAIL on the Ionia side and the plaza side (ahem).

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