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Waterfall Shoppes


GRM76

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I was curious if anyone knew more about the continuing development of the old Showcase Cinema (Waterfall Shoppes) area. I know that a hotel just opened there with another being built. Dick's is supposedly moving in as well. Has anyone been over there lately?

Do we really need 3 new hotels in the next 6 months?

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Coldstone is moving in next to Longhorn Steakhouse. I also noticed construction on a unit next to staples but the banner had busted a grommet and I couldn't see who the "Coming Soon" was... :)

Joe

"Party America."

If I was working inside a brand-new retail establishment, merching it up, and there was a NOW HIRING banner hanging out front, along with one stating the business name which was hanging by a thread and hence illegible, I would go out and fix it.

But that's just me.

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Things just go in there all the time. It has to be one of the healthiest commercial developments in all of metro GR.

It's new, it's next to two major arterials, and the development company is assertive about filling up the outlots.

However, from a design standpoint, I would not call it "healthy." Blatant violations of pedestrian and ADA access abound. It looks like one design firm did the Moe-Starbuck-Noodles piece, someone else did Target, another company did Staples...and no one actually went out to see where existing sidewalks and roadways are.

Yeah, it's Cascade Twp, "we don't need no steenkin' sidewalks," and no one's going to try to cross 28th St to get to the smallish restaurants. Thus we have industrial park workers **getting in their cars to drive** across the street. (My office neighbor does it all the time, to go to Arby's or Costco.)

Photos to come.

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Everytime I'm out on 28th Street, which is like 1x a month, I am surprised to see the continuous developments with bad design and site layouts. How do these places get approved from PC's?

I'll stick to the central city.

MJLO, I have to completly disagree with you and say that there's nothing healthy about this place.

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Let's attempt to walk to Staples from the Red Roof/BP.

This is on the Bob Evans side of the entrance.

xing1.jpg

xing3.jpg

Here's the Perkins/Longhorn side. This is the cross walk pushbutton.

xwalkalign2.jpg

Here's the alignment on the crosswalk/sidewalk (about a car length off).

xwalkalign1.jpg

Continuing on towards Target:

be-1.jpg

be-3.jpg

staples5.jpg

be-2.jpg

Using a wheelchair? Check out this curb cut:

target3.jpg

Watch that edge! Good thing there's a pretty red railing on the wetland!

target8.jpg

Would it kill the developers to put in a proper sidewalk? From Perkins, you can cross 28th Street, but you can't get to Target.

entrance3.jpg

(My workplace is out back of McD, which is the only reason I'm over here trying to pedestrianize several times a week.)

entrance1.jpg

But you can walk from Staples to Costco!

costco.jpg

There are more...

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^^^Wow, talk about taking your own life in your hands. You couldn't pay me enough to try to walk that area. I've already been hit by a car before, and I wouldn't care to experience that again.

Aw, it's not that bad. The BP/Bob Evans crossing signal stays on WALK for about two lanes worth of stepping. I usually walk in the BE parking lot (behind the westernmost row of cars) until I reach Staples. Returning, I have to establish eye contact and GLARE at the right-turners, lest I become a feature article in the Press.

On days I ride to work, I can coast the bike all the way to Target easily.

Interested in the official reaction from the Twp?

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By popular demand...

Earlier this year I contacted the Twp planning director.

He wrote back that these sites were all being developed, so once they were finished they could be evaluated.

At that time the wheelchair-deadly curb was in place, as well as the crosswalk/sidewalk alignment. And Ray Charles could tell that there would be no ped access headed in along the Longhorn area. The sidewalk along 28th, connecting that crosswalk and going towards Arby's, was just being poured. (At that time I would cross at that location, then walk over to the landscaped median and head south until reaching the Staples sidewalk.)

Now. I have read site plans once or twice. I have reviewed them upon submission. I've compared one outlot to the adjacent one. And I have been known to request changes & improvements. (In Detroit, we'd always specify landscaping and parking blocks and knee walls and brick facades and so forth.) When a developer comes in for approval, you have 'em by the, er, neck. That would be the time to require that the sidewalks match up, or exist, or ADA is complied with, or what have you.

You don't wait until the sites are completed to tell them, "oh, by the way, it seems to be impossible for anyone lacking a car or wings to get in from 28th Street, so we need you to put in some sidewalks."

Did I mention that I work nearby and to get out of the office over lunch hour I visit this development several times a week? Makes me wonder if the Twp has ever bothered to check out what's been approved here.

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Yes, Veloise, please post the township's reaction.

Note--all of the businesses named above are chains...no need to do business with any of them.

I am all for the independent mom-and-pop shops as much as anyone - give me a great neighborhood bakery (Wealthy Street), coffee shop (Common Ground), or meat market (??) any day. Problem is, the large chain stores that everyone loves to hate do serve a purpose, and most all of us give patronize them often. National City, Fifth Third, Meijers, Family Fare, Speedway, Whole Foods, Trader Joes, Sears, etc. etc. etc. - chain's are all there is because $$ tends to trump loyalty. Although you can still be somewhat selective and at least support locally based chains - Meijer's, Family Fare, Macatawa Bank (Holland), Beaners (Lansing), among others.

I gladly support local shops that offer goods and services that are either of higher quality but more expense, or are competitively priced, but at the end of the day they need find a way to either remain competitive with the biggies or find a niche that the big boys can't economically fill. When it comes down to spending $120 for a pair of shoes at a local shop or $75 for the exact same thing at a chain or on the internet, I will still chose to save $45.

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Here's the Perkins/Longhorn side. This is the cross walk pushbutton.

xwalkalign2.jpg

haha this is probably my favorite.

But to be realistic, are there people in that area that actually walk places, or would if they could? I can see bad side walks being a problem down 28th more into the city, but I don't think I've ever really seen a pedestrain anywhere in Cascade, unless they were walking to their car :)

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haha this is probably my favorite.

But to be realistic, are there people in that area that actually walk places, or would if they could? I can see bad side walks being a problem down 28th more into the city, but I don't think I've ever really seen a pedestrain anywhere in Cascade, unless they were walking to their car :)

When I was on the GVMC non-motorized committee, the resident bike geek (no, not me!!) flatly stated that there was no need to provide anything on streets like 28th. The planner in charge, Chris Dingman, pointed out that all along the road there are dusty worn trails where people are walking. He said people take the bus, get off, and walk to their destination. Sometimes folks drop off a car at a fix-it place and want to walk to a more pleasant waiting location.

It's not like this is a back country road with 2 ped trips per day. Someone might want to cross the street and go shopping but not be forced to drive. Bad design such as this negates any choice.

I think I mentioned that I work in that gawdawful office park behind the Clown. Several hundred people work there. On an air photo I figured out that Meijer's is only a little further from Target, but there's no way to walk to it.

Build it and they will walk. In my pictured examples, the Twp could have required that the developer use some common sense in providing sidewalks.

edit: The first day I worked there last year, they took me out to lunch. We all piled into cars and drove to Smoky Bones. (I was appalled.) To return, we drove back through the office park, winding all the way around the back of it; there are some landscaped barricades blocking what used to be through streets. (I about lost my lunch.) That restaurant is a shorter walk than up Monroe Center from Four Friends to the police HQ.

Visiting colleagues routinely drive to Lone Star and to --get this--Perkins. For that one, I refused to get in the car. "But it saves tiiiiime!" one of 'em wailed. Tough. I hoofed it, and beat them, held the door for them.

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Welcome to Cascade Twp, where we install ped xings and pushbuttons adjacent to muddy grass.

100_2668.jpg

Revised crosswalk and ramp. Notice the location of the ped xing pushbutton.

100_2669.jpg

What's the ADA-approved turning radius on sidewalk width? This ain't it.

100_2672.jpg

You still can't walk or wheel to Target. And you can't get to the future Coldstone (on the right) without crossing grass and curbs.

100_2673.jpg

Another look at the not-there curb cut by Target.

100_2674.jpg

But what nice street furniture they have.

100_2676.jpg

100_2677.jpg

And they put a lot of effort into these flowers.

100_2678.jpg

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You make some great points Veloise and the design is definitely pathetic. However, where are all the peds coming from? I wouldn't ride my bike down 28th St. to save my life & I don't remember sidewalks . . .there needs to be tons more improvement than just this corridor to encourage more pedistrian behaviour. Your comments about your co-workers driving everywhere especially places a stones throw away is hilarious . . . are they large fellows?

As to what was developed there, if one more strip mall type development goes in, I think I'll puke. How many Starbucks, Staples and Targets does one town need????????? Yuck.

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Veloise, you are like our very own Henry Erb, but with better pictures! :lol: What a sad looking development that whole project has turned out to be. I think Cascade Twp may be getting a little desperate. They're even looking at having Centennial Park made into a "Downtown Development Zone" (or something) because of the vacant parcels and the old Foremost HQ building that is perpetually empty (so I hear I kid you not).

Oh yeah, here

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You make some great points Veloise and the design is definitely pathetic. However, where are all the peds coming from? I wouldn't ride my bike down 28th St. to save my life & I don't remember sidewalks . . .there needs to be tons more improvement than just this corridor to encourage more pedistrian behaviour.

A journey of a thousand miles...

Developing dead ends like these is not unlike building a highway and leaving the jersey wall in place. If you're going to require sidewalks, why not use Federally-mandated standards and established guidelines? Watch, in a couple years there will be a huge townhouse development infilling behind Target and the new Dick's.

I wonder what it cost to go back in and pour that new ramp by Coldstone, then replace the curb.

Your comments about your co-workers driving everywhere especially places a stones throw away is hilarious . . . are they large fellows?

The "save time" one is female and weighs 98 lbs!

They also make fun of brown-bagging ("frozen burritos, yuck") and anyone who dares go DT, let alone willingly. Did I mention that the lot of them *go out to eat lunch* every single day? That's got to add up to about $40/week...for food trucked in from a factory and then defrosted and presented by someone who's been trained in Customer Service the [chain] Way.

Damn I miss DT.

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