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Harbourview Station

urbanvb

By urbanvb
in Hampton Roads

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urbanlife Town

urbanlife

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I always thought North Suffolk should be its own town anyways, so this is good to hear for the area. And yes it would be nice to see some new developments in downtown Suffolk, but I have a feeling with the growth happening in the north side of the city, that the southern side will all be forgotten about.

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andyfried Whistle-Stop

andyfried

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I always thought North Suffolk should be its own town anyways, so this is good to hear for the area. And yes it would be nice to see some new developments in downtown Suffolk, but I have a feeling with the growth happening in the north side of the city, that the southern side will all be forgotten about.
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urbanlife Town

urbanlife

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The southern part of suffolk is just as far away from downtown as the northern part is.Suffolk is a very big city and downtown is right in the middle.Southern suffolk is very rural ,and downtown is like a little urban core.Northern Suffolk was very much like southern suffolk until the last couple of years.They shouldn't neglect downtown because I think it has great potential.I'm amazed at the amount of development in the north.I'm not complaining at least we are getting some great developments somewhere in the city.
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andyfried Whistle-Stop

andyfried

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I agree, don't forget, i did grow up there and am very, very familiar with the make up of Suffolk. I just think it should of been broken into two cities when it became a city. I think at this point in time it would make more sense because the north end is coming on new development and I suspect the city of Suffolk might start pulling a Chesapeake and forget about their downtown and start focusing on a new area. I do hope I am wrong with this, but if it were two cities, this wouldn't even be an issue. Now saying that, I could be totally wrong about Suffolk, they could use this new amount of tax dollars to help revive their downtown because, unlike Chesapeake, Suffolk's city government is downtown, so there are city officials that see downtown Suffolk everyday.

And yes I totally agree about downtown Suffolk. It has the potential to be a great little downtown and be a greater service the the area that surrounds it. But to do that, they will have to improve the job market downtown and make it attractive to new development. At its current state, with the exception of a couple improvements, it is mostly a rundown downtown....but not a done for downtown.

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urbanlife Town

urbanlife

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you are right, I forgot about them redeveloping the fairgrounds and the old obici site. I use to deliver printed material to Obici back when they were at the old hospital.

Yeah a stronger push for better retail in downtown would probably help spur things along. Granted, i am not sure the city could handle what Norfolk had to do to get their downtown back in action by building a mall downtown. But it would be nice to see some new improvements to happen there.

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orulz City

orulz

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This project is not going to be the urban panacea that the developers are suggesting. While the pretty renderings might trick us into believing them, this will be nothing like VB's town center.

The greatest strengths of VB's town center are not its density or the mere fact that its streets are gridded. They are that 1. it is on a previously underutilized parcel in the center of an already heavily developed area. 2. its location allows its gridded streets to easily extend into neighboring parcels, allowing the district to GROW. It's not limited to one developer. Other developers can buy nearby land, extend the street grid onto their property, and be part of the district. 3. VB Town Center is right on the VB-Norfolk rail line, which will probably be used for transit at some point in the future. They're taking all the right steps to build a legitimate downtown from scratch. To me, that's absolutely amazing, and I've never seen anything quite like it in the US.

This Suffolk town center is completely hemmed in, on the west by suburban cul-de-sac subdivisions, on the east by a massive freeway interchange, and on the north and south by big exurban arterials. The street grid can't grow across any of these barriers. There is very little potential for urban development to spread outside this development. More likely, we'll see strip malls, power centers, and big boxes spring up in the neighborhood. While this development will wind up being internally walkable, that means nothing. "Lifestyle Centers" are internally walkable. Shopping malls are internally walkable. Hell, Super Wal-Marts are internally walkable. To go anywhere not on this one exact parcel developed by this one developer, will require getting in your car and driving.

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urbanfan Hamlet

urbanfan

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This project is not going to be the urban panacea that the developers are suggesting. While the pretty renderings might trick us into believing them, this will be nothing like VB's town center.

The greatest strengths of VB's town center are not its density or the mere fact that its streets are gridded. They are that 1. it is on a previously underutilized parcel in the center of an already heavily developed area. 2. its location allows its gridded streets to easily extend into neighboring parcels, allowing the district to GROW. It's not limited to one developer. Other developers can buy nearby land, extend the street grid onto their property, and be part of the district. 3. VB Town Center is right on the VB-Norfolk rail line, which will probably be used for transit at some point in the future. They're taking all the right steps to build a legitimate downtown from scratch. To me, that's absolutely amazing, and I've never seen anything quite like it in the US.

This Suffolk town center is completely hemmed in, on the west by suburban cul-de-sac subdivisions, on the east by a massive freeway interchange, and on the north and south by big exurban arterials. The street grid can't grow across any of these barriers. There is very little potential for urban development to spread outside this development. More likely, we'll see strip malls, power centers, and big boxes spring up in the neighborhood. While this development will wind up being internally walkable, that means nothing. "Lifestyle Centers" are internally walkable. Shopping malls are internally walkable. Hell, Super Wal-Marts are internally walkable. To go anywhere not on this one exact parcel developed by this one developer, will require getting in your car and driving.

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