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Bad suburban and urban design


GRDadof3

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New Family Dollar on Grandville Ave in Roosevelt Park and the new Subway building at Michigan and Fuller have many issues and frankly none of them have very much to do with style. Style is irrelevant.

Yes the Family Dollar cozies up to the street and even puts apartments above it, so hey, its vertical mixed use!!! And while that is great, it doesn't cut it.

This is a typological problem. These are mixed use buildings with retail at the street. They need storefront windows, not punched openings. Storefronts follow a certain pattern, with a knee wall, lots of glass, recessed entry door, maybe some transoms. The FD building does not achieve this. Upper floors of mixed use types typically have a minimum threshold for glass vs. surface, with fairly regular placement of windows, and properly proportioned windows, again FD does none of that.

It also engages the street in proximity only. It is not inviting and does not make the pedestrian experience any better than the adjacent parking lot.

Overall an abysmal failure--except for that fact that a Family Dollar actually agreed to have residences above it, maybe a paradigm shift?

The Michigan/Fuller thing is even worse. This is in effect the back of the building, just with windows. Look inside and it will be evident. Sure they put it at the street and even put windows at the street. But the building does not define the space and does not add quality to the public realm.

An even BIGGER failure, but hey, they did class it up with the brick.

Both of these buildings addressed style by adding a few doo-dads, particular the Family Dollar one, but really, the only thing those accomplish (especially the swoop and corny gables) is further their cartoon appearance.

If this is the best we can do, we are hopeless.

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Some promising news. Two companies, including Cornerstone Architects, plan to begin construction on two developments in Standale using an urban format, which they say will "stick out like sore thumbs" until the other areas nearby take on the same look.

http://blog.mlive.com/grpress/2008/01/two_..._plans_for.html

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  • 2 years later...

I visited Omaha recently. It's the city where I grew up and home of my favorite example of bad suburban design. Well, it's more the result of bad suburban design, bad planning, and no significant public transit. Maybe it belongs in a different thread?

Let me introduce you to "The Monstrosity" as I call it. I've also heard it called the "$100 million mile." Some might call it an off ramp.

Omaha had a congestion problem. So many people now drive WAY out west to their big suburban McMansions and typical suburban home at the beginning and end of their workday that they'd get off the highway at Dodge street, and have to go through a stoplight before the main east-west road in Omaha turns into a limited access highway again. How to solve this problem? Build 6 lanes of elevated highway to connect I-680 with West Dodge "Highway" for $100 million, bypassing the stoplight.

monstrosity_map.jpg

P1000108_small.jpg

This thing is unfortunately pretty typical of Omaha west of 72nd St (post 1960 or so). I hate it and try to avoid going west of 72nd at all costs whenever I visit (kind of like I try to avoid east 28th St if I can at all avoid it).

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post-23592-060498500 1278194419_thumb.jp

Now that I see this thread's been bumped, I thought I'd vent about the new Kentwood Public Library that's opening on August 24th. While the old library was due for an update, and the new one looks pretty nice, I'm unhappy with the new location they chose.

The old one was on Kalamazoo, halfway between 44th and 52nd; basically, smack-dab in the center of Kentwood's population. Most of the city's single family homes are squeezed in the 6-square-mile box between Division-Breton and 44th-60th. This library was within walking distance of most of the houses in that box, and easily within biking distance of all of them. I used to walk or bike there all the time as a kid. Kalamazoo is a pedestrian-friendly road, and the bike trails they've been putting in over the years have made the old library all the more accessible.

The new one is on Breton, right next to City Center. It's on the edge of the box, and in a spot that's far less accessible, by bike or walking, to most of the community. Even most the residences that are close by lie across Breton Road, which is dangerous to cross, especially on that particular bend. This location is closer to the geographical center of Kentwood, and therefore closer to the newer housing-bubble-era developments to the east, like Bailey's Grove. However, those developments are sprawled and isolated; 52nd and East Paris are a pedestrian's nightmare, and people who live in that area would have to drive to a new library no matter where it is.

So yeah, bad suburban design. I hope they find something useful for the old location.

post-23592-060498500 1278194419_thumb.jp

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post-23592-060498500 1278194419_thumb.jp

Now that I see this thread's been bumped, I thought I'd vent about the new Kentwood Public Library that's opening on August 24th. While the old library was due for an update, and the new one looks pretty nice, I'm unhappy with the new location they chose.

The old one was on Kalamazoo, halfway between 44th and 52nd; basically, smack-dab in the center of Kentwood's population. Most of the city's single family homes are squeezed in the 6-square-mile box between Division-Breton and 44th-60th. This library was within walking distance of most of the houses in that box, and easily within biking distance of all of them. I used to walk or bike there all the time as a kid. Kalamazoo is a pedestrian-friendly road, and the bike trails they've been putting in over the years have made the old library all the more accessible.

The new one is on Breton, right next to City Center. It's on the edge of the box, and in a spot that's far less accessible, by bike or walking, to most of the community. Even most the residences that are close by lie across Breton Road, which is dangerous to cross, especially on that particular bend. This location is closer to the geographical center of Kentwood, and therefore closer to the newer housing-bubble-era developments to the east, like Bailey's Grove. However, those developments are sprawled and isolated; 52nd and East Paris are a pedestrian's nightmare, and people who live in that area would have to drive to a new library no matter where it is.

So yeah, bad suburban design. I hope they find something useful for the old location.

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Probably part of some sort of suburban city "center" vision. The City hall, police, water tower, and fire stations are also located right there. Of course, with large distance, giant parking lots, and never-used green space between each.

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