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Brown's vision of the future

Cotuit

By Cotuit
in Providence

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Garris Town

Garris

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I've got to love this quote from the article:

Traffic experts found that a great percentage of the traffic delays on Angel and Waterman streets,the two major thoroughfares, could be attributed to traffic signals that are not properly coordinated.

"Most problems come from the traffic signals," he said. "It's all wrong and mostly random."

Well, I don't know about you, but I'm stunned :rolleyes:

Also...

The university does not plan to build a parking garage... Spies said an assessment of the university's parking situation, based on a formula that calculates separate ratios for the numbers of students living on-campus and off-campus and the number of faculty, found that Brown has a surplus of 192 parking spaces campus-wide.

He said the parking spaces might not be exactly where members of the campus community would want them to be, but that the spaces are there.

The university spent the last year promoting public transportation and the shuttle system in order to ease the parking crunch on the central campus.

Good for them! This means, though, that Brown will not be involved with any comprehensive parking solutions for Thayer retail...

The university has also begun soliciting faculty and staff who might be interested in purchasing nine vacant houses that the university owns on College Hill. They would purchase the houses, fix them up and agree to sell them back to the university when, or if, they chose to move.

Fascinating... Has anyone heard of anything like this with an institution before?

- Garris

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jencoleslaw Town

jencoleslaw

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Fascinating... Has anyone heard of anything like this with an institution before?

- Garris

Brown did it before with a bunch of houses on Brook Street (just past the first station on the left heading towards Wickendon) a few years ago. The houses were very well priced (at the time) and fixed up and had shared parking. It was a good deal.

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dgreco City

dgreco

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I would suggest a store that is not closed during winter break. I went to Thayer specifically to shop at the BB once to find it closed, how annoying, and what a poor way to make money.

It would be nice to see the BB improve to become a kind of anchor for Thayer Street's retail district. Thayer Street has degraded greatly in the few years I've lived here. I used to like to bring friends up there to wander around and go into the shops, but the shops are becoming fewer and fewer (no College Hill Bookstore, no In Your Ear, no Oop!...). The last time I brought an out of town friend up there, it was kind of embarrassing, sort of like, 'well that's it then?'

They are redoing the sidewalks? maybe that will add a little to the street and maybe reattract businesses, not an In Your Ear, or the comic bookstore/Adrenalize zone gaming place... But more franchised stuff like Oop maybe another retail store

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Garris Town

Garris

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They are redoing the sidewalks? maybe that will add a little to the street and maybe reattract businesses, not an In Your Ear, or the comic bookstore/Adrenalize zone gaming place... But more franchised stuff like Oop maybe another retail store

I can't help but point out again that now that the Brown Bookstore is "saved" from the evils of corporate management, that it still seriously sucks in its current incarnation.

I'm still waiting for the Save the Bookstore activists to start a Better Bookstore website. Gee, wonder when that will happen?

- Garris

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Garris Town

Garris

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I assume this has already been covered somewhere but I havent stumbled upon it yet - whats going on with the gas station site behind the bookstore?

It's for The Walk, a major and, some would argue long overdue, effort to construct a new, landscaped pedestrian connector on the Western edge of the Brown Campus to unify the scattered buildings, dorms, and classrooms there. It will also include some new buildings as well which, I'm sure, the CHNA will fight to their dying breath. You can start selling tickets and popcorn to the watch the struggle now.

There's a fascinating and comprehensive 43 page .pdf describing the project in total detail (including landscaping designs, renders, etc) online here.

It sounds like a fantastic idea.

- Garris

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jencoleslaw Town

jencoleslaw

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It's for The Walk, a major and, some would argue long overdue, effort to construct a new, landscaped pedestrian connector on the Western edge of the Brown Campus to unify the scattered buildings, dorms, and classrooms there. It will also include some new buildings as well which, I'm sure, the CHNA will fight to their dying breath. You can start selling tickets and popcorn to the watch the struggle now.

There's a fascinating and comprehensive 43 page .pdf describing the project in total detail (including landscaping designs, renders, etc) online here.

It sounds like a fantastic idea.

- Garris

CHNA didn't have a lot of bad things to say about it btw. It has already gone tthrough the CPC.

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gregw Hamlet

gregw

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If I recall, part of the long term plan calls for 2-3 new buildings... That's when things will get interesting...

- Garris

A good part of the plan--which will hopefully become reality--is to move one of the 19th-century houses next to the gas station site up to the corner of Brown and Angell, across from Hillel, where there is presently a surface parking lot.

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dgreco City

dgreco

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It's for The Walk, a major and, some would argue long overdue, effort to construct a new, landscaped pedestrian connector on the Western edge of the Brown Campus to unify the scattered buildings, dorms, and classrooms there. It will also include some new buildings as well which, I'm sure, the CHNA will fight to their dying breath. You can start selling tickets and popcorn to the watch the struggle now.

There's a fascinating and comprehensive 43 page .pdf describing the project in total detail (including landscaping designs, renders, etc) online here.

It sounds like a fantastic idea.

- Garris

I could be very wrong, maybe its because I don't Brown that well, but that whole presentation seems very confusing. Seems like to much going on with out an idea of where it all is or what it is supposed to be. Especially the office/class/lab drafts.

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Garris Town

Garris

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A good part of the plan--which will hopefully become reality--is to move one of the 19th-century houses next to the gas station site up to the corner of Brown and Angell, across from Hillel, where there is presently a surface parking lot.

Absolutely! If I recall, is it one or actually two historic homes that are being moved? Either way, a definite and admirable plus of the plan...

I could be very wrong, maybe its because I don't Brown that well, but that whole presentation seems very confusing. Seems like to much going on with out an idea of where it all is or what it is supposed to be. Especially the office/class/lab drafts.

Again, it's been a while since I looked at the PDF, but I believe there's a good amount in the plan which is still nebulous and in the planning stages, or just flat hasn't been worked out yet.

I think this is all going to unfold over quite a long time.

- Garris

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dgreco City

dgreco

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Absolutely! If I recall, is it one or actually two historic homes that are being moved? Either way, a definite and admirable plus of the plan...

Again, it's been a while since I looked at the PDF, but I believe there's a good amount in the plan which is still nebulous and in the planning stages, or just flat hasn't been worked out yet.

I think this is all going to unfold over quite a long time.

- Garris

This is off-topic, but the new sidewalks make thayer st. look so much cleaner and nicer. All they need to do is repave the road...

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dgreco City

dgreco

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Where are these sidewalks? I was up there last week and didn't notice any.

They started at the top of the street near J&Js candy bar, and they are working there way down. Like I said a while ago my father's company maintains the street, and he meet with whatever board or commission and they said the sidewalks would be finished before winter, and that they had othe rplans to "nice'n up" the street.

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dgreco City

dgreco

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Thanks for the info.

Do you know if the sidewalks are part of those million dollars or so in improvements that the Thayer St Improvement District was working on?

02-145a.jpg

I was looking at this link and it's interesting to see how diverse (or not diverse, depending on your point of view) the Thayer Street ownership is.

- Garris

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