Asheville's Next Urban Park?

[hauntedheadnc]

Here's the link to the Mountain X-Press article:

http://www.mountainx.com/news/2007/ashevil...next_urban_park

And here's the link to the advocacy group's site:

http://web.mac.com/downtown6/iWeb/Site/Home.html

This seems to be a good idea. I was in favor of the parking deck and I still think the city needs more parking, but we do also need more greenspace. This is about as good a location for some greenery as could be hoped for. One thing about Asheville is that while it has a plethora of lovely architecture, and lots of street trees, it just can't boast a selection of really good urban parks, the way Greenville can with with its Falls Park and Cleveland Park. Sure, Pritchard Park is nice, and Pack Square will be nice, if boring when they finish decking it out with the very best office park art money can buy, but downtown is a bit of an urban jungle. It needs more trees and lawn to soften its edges.

[orulz]

I agree that this is a great place for some kind of park, but I think the area would be best served by a reconfiguration of streets, some corresponding smallish-scale development, and an urban square,,rather than just taking a couple of somewhat incoherent parcels and turning them into a park, which seems to me like a BANANA response to building downtown. The urban fabric in that part of town is far from complete, and a slightly smaller but more integrated park would be better.

The parking deck should go where it belongs, in the BellSouth lot.

I drew up my idea and sent it to council over a year ago when the parking deck plan first flopped. Got a response back saying that it looked interesting and would be taken as public input.

I'd send it to the advocacy group, but they don't have a freakin' e-mail address for feedback on their website!

[archiham04]

I agree that this is a great place for some kind of park, but I think the area would be best served by a reconfiguration of streets, some corresponding smallish-scale development, and an urban square,,rather than just taking a couple of somewhat incoherent parcels and turning them into a park, which seems to me like a BANANA response to building downtown. The urban fabric in that part of town is far from complete, and a slightly smaller but more integrated park would be better.

[orulz]

RE parking around Pack Square-

Isn't there a lot of new parking that was made available by the two-laning of College west of the roundabout?

How far along is construction there? I guess there's maybe no reason for me to be asking, since I'm going to be in Asheville this weekend.

[archiham04]

RE parking around Pack Square-

Isn't there a lot of new parking that was made available by the two-laning of College west of the roundabout?

How far along is construction there? I guess there's maybe no reason for me to be asking, since I'm going to be in Asheville this weekend.

[hauntedheadnc]

Clarification: I don't really mind the loss of parking on City County Plaza. I always thought that was a real missed opportunity. The parking seemed to have been jammed in there without much thought to the monumentality of the space. I DO think that they could've integrated parking into the amphitheater design though. An amphitheater is only used about 10% of the time (if that). why not stripe some of the plazas and let them be used for parking during the week and rope them off for the weekends and events. They wouldn't have to look like parking lots.... They could be cobble stone or pavers...

[hauntedheadnc]

I agree that this is a great place for some kind of park, but I think the area would be best served by a reconfiguration of streets, some corresponding smallish-scale development, and an urban square,,rather than just taking a couple of somewhat incoherent parcels and turning them into a park, which seems to me like a BANANA response to building downtown. The urban fabric in that part of town is far from complete, and a slightly smaller but more integrated park would be better.

The parking deck should go where it belongs, in the BellSouth lot.

I drew up my idea and sent it to council over a year ago when the parking deck plan first flopped. Got a response back saying that it looked interesting and would be taken as public input.

I'd send it to the advocacy group, but they don't have a freakin' e-mail address for feedback on their website!

[hauntedheadnc]

By the way... anybody wishing to contact the group pushing for this park, it would appear that you can do so by sending an email to [email protected] . If you click the link to sign the newspaper ad, this is the email address it brings up via Outlook Express on my computer. Give it a try, orulz! Also, it would seem that the site is a work in progress. There wasn't a video of the St. Justin Center demolition yesterday and today there is.