I think that sort of style works if the lower-density properties you’re building around is something you have a clear mandate to replace (e.g. Downtown South, or old industrial units around Atlantic). But around places like Hillsborough St. where you’re close to historic properties or places where optics of “ruin neighborhood character” could paint a target on your back from NIMBYs and leave your project’s rezoning or ASR case vulnerable to political pressure, I don’t know if that’s a good idea?
Speaking of mitigating community damages, Los Angeles’ regional transit agency is partnering with its Department of Mental Health (which is a thing they have there!?) to test out a new service where they can get people undergoing mental health crises while riding public transit the help they need.
Oh wow, good for them! One of the most fun logos and mascots in pro sports sticks around. Replacing an old landfill on the river and relatively close to downtown Tempe is a pretty ideal scenario.
Acknowledging the wink emoji, Tempe is much more urban and closer to the center of the metro than Glendale. In a place with as many spread-out urban centers as the Valley of the Sun that’s a solid win.
And I think it was covered in the Sports thread, but the current trend is for smaller, more consistently full arenas (cough UNC and NC State basketball get on that cough)
So how is that different from the proposal to add that sort of thing to PNC?
Bottom line is that is not an urban location. It’s next door to a low rise suburban office park and acres of low rise warehouse businesses, near garden style apartments, and 2 blocks north of a large swath of SFHs.
Good for them for developing a contained experience, but let’s not pretend that this is more than it is. Bottom line is that they are downsizing their arena in a huge and fast growing metro, locating it away from the energy of the Tempe/ASU community to its east, and plopping it down in the middle of a yawner location. This is just mimicking what franchises did 20 years ago.
It’s an improvement on pretty much every level in terms of being more central, having an arena more in line with actual attendance, and being in bike/transit range (or a 30m walk on a day where it’s not a billion degrees) of a dense district where people actually get out of their cars and walk around and do city things.
Compared to DTR, it’s like if NC State basketball built a smaller arena in a new entertainment district at Centennial. Not exactly urban, but definitely more urban, and a big upgrade to the fan experience from PNC.
We talk about the Wharf development in DC sometimes. I thought it was cool to see this event being held there, with New Belgium from Asheville taking part too.
A roundabout! How progressive! I take it that was part of the new bridge.
It sure looks a lot different than my last trip there, circa 1979, lol.
Thanks for the beautiful shots @OakCityDrone
I leave for Oak Island on Friday and this just super charged my beach fever.
There’s actually two roundabouts now, one on each approach to the bridge. You’re probably due for a visit if the last one was in 1979. I’m down for “DTR” field trip sometime, only if we can end it with beers at Buddy’s bar though. Enjoy OI, we’re looking forward to the pics!
That roundabout is terribly designed IMO. It’s adjacent to a connector street but doesn’t connect, and it actually should have been a little larger in this case. Due to the nature of weekend travel on and off the island, it’s easy for it to back up.
The Frost Bank Tower is great, and the Austinian is pretty sleek, but woof have the Independent and this new one been dogs visually. Shame for what used to be a pretty attractive skyline. At least the height is impressive.
