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River Bank Books Closed

dragt

By dragt
in Grand Rapids

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civitas Burg

civitas

Posted
Posted
I thought we were talking about one way streets downtown. The City of GR competes with all the other Act 51 jurisdictions in the GR Metropolitan Planning Organization (known as Grand Valley Metro Council) for a share of the local agency "Urban Funds". These are Federal Highway funds passed through MDOT to the local agencies ie Cities of GR, Wyoming, Walker, Grandville, Kentwood and the Kent County Road Commission. All these agencies must comply with the AASHTO design guidelines. These guidelines control lane widths and horizontal & vertical alignments and things like guardrail standards. If the city wants 1 lane, 2 lanes, 3 lanes, a boulevard, on street parking, no parking, bike lanes, oneway, two way, wide sidewalks, narrow sidewalks, no sidewalks, brick pavers, concrete streets, blacktop streets, those are strictly city decisons, the DOT has no say. Unless a "City Standard" design is really substandard, they pretty much get to use and do what they want. Downtown city streets with a 25 mph speed limit has to meet pretty minimal standards. Your statement that MDOT has a say in any street that connects to a state highway is incorrect. If that was correct, MDOT would have a lot of say in roads under the control of the Road Commission, and I know for a fact that is not true. You're giving the DOT credit for far more control than they have.
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Veloise City

Veloise

Posted
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Friday's chat with Deb yielded no news; the DT location was not even mentioned.

I find it disconcerting to see the County health sticker on the door ("this space shall not be used to serve food until we inspect it"). The old Blimpie's on Leonard (next to the Chinese place), I can understand stickering the door. Did I miss reports of a health issue at RB?

Still looks like a turn-key op.

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Khorasaurus Unincorporated Area

Khorasaurus

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How exactly are Ottawa and Ionia a maze? Or even "maddening"? Ottawa goes south, Ionia goes north. IT'S NOT HARD. In fact, it's way easier than trying to find your way from parking lot to parking lot trying to avoid turning left onto 28th Street.

Also, I know I'm preaching to the choir, but the most you could possibly pay for parking downtown is, what, 10 bucks? And that's if you leave your car somewhere all day!

Also, how did Mr. Bell manage to drive around for 10 minutes looking for a parking spot? He must have passed dozens of spots along the way. Perhaps he was looking for Riverbank's gigantic parking lot and was confused when all he could find was a huge garage a whole BLOCK away.

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GRDadof3 Ecumenopolis

GRDadof3

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How exactly are Ottawa and Ionia a maze? Or even "maddening"? Ottawa goes south, Ionia goes north. IT'S NOT HARD. In fact, it's way easier than trying to find your way from parking lot to parking lot trying to avoid turning left onto 28th Street.

Also, I know I'm preaching to the choir, but the most you could possibly pay for parking downtown is, what, 10 bucks? And that's if you leave your car somewhere all day!

Also, how did Mr. Bell manage to drive around for 10 minutes looking for a parking spot? He must have passed dozens of spots along the way. Perhaps he was looking for Riverbank's gigantic parking lot and was confused when all he could find was a huge garage a whole BLOCK away.

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tamias6 Town

tamias6

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I too found it perplexing that visitors had a hard time nagivating DT because of the one way streets. But then again I have lived in the GR area for over 20 years and know how to quickly get from A to B in DT. Still for ease of navigation to help retain visitors I would like to see one way streets converted back to two ways.

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mpchicago Burg

mpchicago

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I too found it perplexing that visitors had a hard time nagivating DT because of the one way streets. But then again I have lived in the GR area for over 20 years and know how to quickly get from A to B in DT. Still for ease of navigation to help retain visitors I would like to see one way streets converted back to two ways.
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civitas Burg

civitas

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How exactly are Ottawa and Ionia a maze? Or even "maddening"? Ottawa goes south, Ionia goes north. IT'S NOT HARD. In fact, it's way easier than trying to find your way from parking lot to parking lot trying to avoid turning left onto 28th Street.

Also, I know I'm preaching to the choir, but the most you could possibly pay for parking downtown is, what, 10 bucks? And that's if you leave your car somewhere all day!

Also, how did Mr. Bell manage to drive around for 10 minutes looking for a parking spot? He must have passed dozens of spots along the way. Perhaps he was looking for Riverbank's gigantic parking lot and was confused when all he could find was a huge garage a whole BLOCK away.

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Veloise City

Veloise

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It's troubling to me that the bookstore still looks like a bookstore (minus retail signage and window display). There's no contact info showing. Nothing says AVAILABLE or COULD BE YOURS.

You'd think that a business for sale would do some basic marketing. Even if it is listed in a lot of other places (independent bookseller venues? real estate ones?) it wouldn't hurt to have something on-site. (One or two Penn Club members have checkbooks in their pockets, as I understand it...)

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localtalent Hamlet

localtalent

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It's troubling to me that the bookstore still looks like a bookstore (minus retail signage and window display). There's no contact info showing. Nothing says AVAILABLE or COULD BE YOURS.

You'd think that a business for sale would do some basic marketing. Even if it is listed in a lot of other places (independent bookseller venues? real estate ones?) it wouldn't hurt to have something on-site. (One or two Penn Club members have checkbooks in their pockets, as I understand it...)

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