A bit more information here:
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Happy for anything on the âotherâ side of 147!
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Getting rid of 147 advocates have more ammunition.
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Ready for the days that there wonât be any sides and just a thriving urban centerpiece boulevard.
Major focus on equity though, otherwise those neighborhoods would be better off with the highway staying.
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Looking at this render, it makes me wonder how removing the freeway actually happens and how much developable land gets returned to the community on the freewayâs former edges and ramps. It looks like it might be more than expected.
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When I did my very high level map I came up with 20+ developable acres and close to 100 acres total.
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Yep, this has the potential to displace a ton of people unless they include some major affordable/workforce housing in the plans.
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A neat residential conversion of one of those weird 70s cylinder buildings just wrapped up in Philly: YIMBY Looks at Rental Apartments at The Terrace on 18th in Logan Square, Center City - Philadelphia YIMBY
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@atl_transplant mentioned philanthropy and trails elsewhere, which reminded me of the Indianapolis Cultural Trail. One lane of the overbuilt stroads surrounding downtown was ripped out and replaced with a sidepath for bikes, a wider sidewalk, rain gardens, etc. (Another section incorporated an existing Canal Walk.) My photo from 2008:
Map of new expansions underway:
An FHWA case study on the trail notes that the total cost was $63M (in 2007), including $35M from USDOT ($20.5M TIGER, $14.5M repurposed) and $27.5M in donations ($15M from Gene Glick, an apartment developer). The trail has spurred extensive new development.
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FYI, they only just released an RFP for the masterplan a few weeks ago; the campus hasnât been designed yet. This is presumably one of those extremely conceptual renderings in one of the responses and I donât even know if it was the winning team. It also seems like a leak that wasnât supposed to be made public yet and is resulting in a bit of PR headache for the developer.
The site is extremely politically charged, and Iâd say this is probably going to be one of the most controversial developments in Durham in recent memory. Previous proposals have all failed to move forward, in part because of public and city opposition based in a perceived lack of sensitivity to the history of the area. In the mid 2000s someone on city council said she âwas not going to sell her people down the river.â Hard to say if sentiment has changed in 15 years, but I really hope weâll see a more sensitive approach to redevelopment here than the rendering/article suggests.
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I wouldnât put much stock in the rendering. The campus hasnât been designed yet; itâs pre-master planning stage.
I thought the article seemed a bit aggressive. Given how conversations about Hyati park and even the freeway removal have gone, thereâs going to have to be an extremely careful planning and equity analysis before anything gets built in this area.
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For sure. I think the need is even more strongly pronounced on this specific site. Heritage Square was essentially conceived as an attempt to incubate black-owned businesses to replace Haytiâs adjacent Fayetteville and Pettigrew St. business corridors. Clearly itâs a grotesque replacement for a once thriving neighborhood that contained 500 businesses before Urban Renewal, and itâs struggled pretty much since the start. But the few locally-owned spots that remain are kind of the last hold-out of a concentrated area of black entrepreneurship in Hayti, and thereâs probably nowhere else near the urban core that these kinds of places can afford. For the new owner to just buy them out of their lease and plop a life sciences campus on this site without any recognition of its history would leave an awful taste in my mouth, so I hope thereâs more to the story.
I was reflecting on this in the bull city development forum and really wish the city had been more proactive in shaping development here. They had the opportunity to do so for decades⌠Scientific Properties bought the site for $4 million in 2007, sold it for $12 million in 2019, and the most recent sale to a Texas investor yielded $62 million. In the worst case scenario, Durham couldâve used proceeds to fund affordable housing or reparations to descendants of the displaced. More ideally, the city couldâve followed in the heels of many other cities across the continent that have been intentional about shaping development in neighborhoods still reeling from the effects of Urban Renewal.
Thereâs actually a term to describe this process thatâs been coined by local architect (full disclosure: my coworker) Zena Howard, best known as project manager for the Smithsonian Museum of African American History and Culture. Sheâs built an expertise in âremembrance design,â a design process that responds to inequity and injustice by restoring lost cultural connections and honoring collective memory and history. To give you a concrete example, here is a framework we developed for Hoganâs Alley, a historically black neighborhood in Vancouver that was demolished in a manner very similar to Hayti (just is a brief summary from a 50 page document that was assembled after significant community engagement):
RECOMMENDATIONS: The Hoganâs Alley block will be redeveloped in the coming years as the viaducts are removed and the Northeast False Creek Area Plan is implemented. The programming, planning, and design that is to precede this must honour the story of Hoganâs Alley and embody the spirit of the Black Canadian community who once thrived here. Through these efforts the City can bring about a better understanding of the communityâs history, why it was important and how it can play a productive role in the future of Vancouver. In consideration of the proceedings and outcomes from this workshop, the Perkins+Will team offers the following recommendations for the redevelopment of Hoganâs Alley, as well as the next steps necessary to its successful implementation.
The development plan for the Hoganâs Alley portion of the Sub-area 6D should include the following:
⢠Cultural Centre as a place of gathering, education and empowerment.
⢠Housing that encourages diversity and is accessible to a broad range of income levels.
⢠Development framework and scale that supports small minority business enterprises.
⢠Open space tailored to actively support organized community activities and informal recreation.
⢠A distinct character and sense of place that celebrates the Hoganâs Alley heritage and is welcoming to all citizens of Vancouver and beyond.
⢠Programs and infrastructure that support Vancouverâs Black community in outreach to other minority communities and in support of a proactive role in the larger Vancouver community.
I think these are pretty vague goals and the devil is in the details of implementation, but it would be encouraging to see a framework like this to guide redevelopment here.
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And I bet they donât even have a rooftop Chick-fil-A like ours definitely really will!
The Temple Bar looked cool with all the flowers tho. Love seeing your pics!
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Why do you call it that?
My pictures donât do it justice, so Iâll post a couple links at the bottom, but visiting Birmingham, AL to see some family and went by the new CityWalk park. This is certainly a case of making the best of what you have. The 20/59 interstate overpass had to be replaced. A lot of advocates wanted it taken out for good, but unfortunately it wouldâve cost way too much to reroute it. Thankfully a grant required them to build a park underneath and it turned out quite well. Opens up / connects the area much better. High quality skate park. Cool lights at night.
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in Nashville for a concert. DTN is packed on a saturday afternoon. This a big food hall/shoping mall smack on Broadway.
and how bad is this parking screen? lol
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assembly food hall is little like SmoHo, perhaps more like the proposal for the Nexus build. If only both become as livey as this. Food Hall in 2nd floor, reaturants & shopping in 1st. Broadway is actually too crowded for the wife & I, we truly morphed into country mice that last decade or so, lol.
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