First Ward Urban Village / North Tryon Vision Plan

[Niner National]

2 hours ago, SgtCampsalot said:

Has anyone been by this stretch of N Tryon lately? Apparently Waterbean Coffee (#3) has set up shop in this innocuous building on N Tryon St at Phifer Ave (that one street in between 9th and 10th). 
A squat little bunker of a building set back like 30-40 ft from the street, nestled tranquilly in between three parking lots, it looks really nice inside. Pretty awesome to have something north of 8th St! Reminds me of a small town's main street on its outskirts.

I tried waterbean out a couple days ago. The coffee was alright.  Didn't try the food.

 

[JoshuaDrown]

On 4/7/2017 at 8:13 PM, Niner National said:

I tried waterbean out a couple days ago. The coffee was alright.  Didn't try the food.

 

FWIW, my wife makes us walk good deal out of our way for Waterbean's Macadamia Nut Latte... Corkscrew & Not Just Coffee are many blocks closer.

[Guest]

22 minutes ago, JoshuaDrown said:

FWIW, my wife makes us walk good deal out of our way for Waterbean's Macadamia Nut Latte... Corkscrew & Not Just Coffee are many blocks closer.

HAHA, corkscrew is basically feet from you.

[JoshuaDrown]

36 minutes ago, ricky_davis_fan_21 said:

HAHA, corkscrew is basically feet from you.

The wine bar portion of Corkscrew gets plenty of our money... on that note, I do think it is so important to support the places that fill in the retail portion of buildings like The Vue. Though we are massing more residents into Fourth Ward and Third Ward, some of the side streets a few blocks off Tryon (or North on Tryon, like Waterbean)  just don't get enough foot traffic. I constantly have to remind myself to not "absent-mindedly" walk to Church, Tryon, or College... but instead hit some of our jewels, like the Poplar Street Cafe.

I am anxious to see how ANY development around First Ward Park will effect the residents on N Davidson, Alexander St, and the Garden District. They currently have a decent walk to get to much of anything.

Edited April 12, 2017 by JoshuaDrown

[KJHburg]

Does anyone know when the apartments that will wrap this deck on 3 sides will get started asking for a friend? 

[JRNYP2C]

3 hours ago, KJHburg said:

Does anyone know when the apartments that will wrap this deck on 3 sides will get started asking for a friend? 

I'm going to take a stab and say somewhere in the ballpark of 2025.  That would fall in line with everything else that Levine drags along.....

[navigator319]

I walk around this and First Ward Park 3x a week and to me this garage/apartment project appears stalled.  I can say I haven't seen any substantial change in 2/3 months.  I do see a very low number of trucks in and around the site though, so I have no idea what they doing.

[elrodvt]

^Burying our dreams?

[southslider]

^More signature TOD for Car-lot

 

[KJHburg]

I love this park and if you look this way toward heart of uptown it is great. One more shot of the huge parking garage and the concrete rebar for the proposed apartments that will wrap some of it. 

[go_vertical]

Has anyone ever seen much activity here other that special events? I don't walk passed the park very often but when I do there is rarely ever anyone using it.

[KJHburg]

26 minutes ago, go_vertical said:

Has anyone ever seen much activity here other that special events? I don't walk passed the park very often but when I do there is rarely ever anyone using it.

You are right all the vacant land around it but someday it will be busy. At least Lennar will be starting their high rise apartment tower soon on the block north of the light rail. 

[kermit]

1 hour ago, go_vertical said:

Has anyone ever seen much activity here other that special events? I don't walk passed the park very often but when I do there is rarely ever anyone using it.

Outside of events I have never seen it packed but I have been consistently surprised by how mnay people are using the park when I pass through around 8pm on weeknights and on Sundays. Its nowhere near Bearden levels, but its way busier than Marshall Park.

[elrodvt]

If the grandkids are asked to choose they always ask for "the park with all the rocks". They just love climbing on them and I've noticed other kids find them irristable also. It's not always that busy but it gets decent utilization and it's location across from imaginon is ideal. I love it.

I do wish they could so more to demark the road between the two sections (9th?). I complained about it and a couple days later signs were up (which was impressive!) But I really think the road should just be closed other than for special events. It's dangerous.

[southslider]

^4th Ward already has too many closed streets. There are other ways to achieve traffic calming. 

[elrodvt]

Calming doesn't make it safe for kids. Anecdotally it's rare anyone drives through there during the day so I don't think it'd hurt carlot too much to lose that through street. Do you live there or have data on road usage? I've never been there at rush hour so maybe then it's an important road but I doubt it. 

Not picking on you but it never ceases to amaze me how many people on an urbanist forum seem primarily interested in how fast cars can get out of the city.

There are a lot of streets I'd love to see closed downtown and many more calmed. It would make the city much more livable and walkable.

[nonillogical]

22 minutes ago, elrodvt said:

Calming doesn't make it safe for kids. Anecdotally it's rare anyone drives through there during the day so I don't think it'd hurt carlot too much to lose that through street. Do you live there or have data on road usage? I've never been there at rush hour so maybe then it's an important road but I doubt it. 

Not picking on you but it never ceases to amaze me how many people on an urbanist forum seem primarily interested in how fast cars can get out of the city.

There are a lot of streets I'd love to see closed downtown and many more calmed. It would make the city much more livable and walkable.

I think a lot of people are sensitive to that kind of change due to our already very broken street grid and how a lot of parts of town are pretty inaccessible-feeling because of it, not so much that its inconvenient or slower for cars. In this case though, I agree with you that its not heavily used and could easily be done away with, even with the development to come in the blocks surrounding the park. One consideration though is that pedestrian-only lightrail crossings that aren't at a station aren't allowed, so killing the road would kill the crossing. 

Edited May 14, 2017 by nonillogical

[atlrvr]

I'd like to see programmable bollards, that close access except during rush hour.

 

[caterpillar2]

Anyone seen any life around the Carolina Theater area? They are required to begin this month according to contract. I hope they the society isn't given a an extension on the required start date. 

[elrodvt]

6 hours ago, nonillogical said:

I think a lot of people are sensitive to that kind of change due to our already very broken street grid and how a lot of parts of town are pretty inaccessible-feeling because of it, not so much that its inconvenient or slower for cars. In this case though, I agree with you that its not heavily used and could easily be done away with, even with the development to come in the blocks surrounding the park. One consideration though is that pedestrian-only lightrail crossings that aren't at a station aren't allowed, so killing the road would kill the crossing. 

Well that's b.s. . Why in the world can't cats have ped only crossings? If any organization should be promoting bikes and waking it should be them.

[Norm2]

27 minutes ago, elrodvt said:

Well that's b.s. . Why in the world can't cats have ped only crossings? If any organization should be promoting bikes and waking it should be them.

I am guessing maybe it is state or federal laws about pedestrian only crossings over train tracks?

[elrodvt]

7 minutes ago, norm21499 said:

I am guessing maybe it is state or federal laws about pedestrian only crossings over train tracks?

They have several in Denver so maybe state or maybe feds won't help fund that piece? Have to try and look that up.

[nonillogical]

3 hours ago, elrodvt said:

Well that's b.s. . Why in the world can't cats have ped only crossings? If any organization should be promoting bikes and waking it should be them.

I don't know if its a law or just CATS policy, but to be fair I would think if anywhere on the whole line an exception could be made, it would be here, since the trains are not getting up to any kind of speed between 7th and 9th St. stations to make a pedestrian-only crossing at 8th much of an issue. Still, maybe the best solution is keeping it a low-traffic street but with liberal control of bollards to block it off like atlrvr suggested. 

[CLTranspo]

Isn't the publix in south end getting a pedestrian only crossing though?

[nonillogical]

2 hours ago, CLTranspo said:

Isn't the publix in south end getting a pedestrian only crossing though?

I'll see if I can find out what the latest is, but last I heard a new station actually sounded more likely than a pedestrian crossing (it's a pretty high-speed stretch), but neither very soon. It's already badly needed, and will be hard to ignore by the time Atherton is done.