Here are 4 recent items related to the proposed Shockoe/Boulevard Redevelopment Plan which have come across my desk.
City Council may vote on the proposal at their next meeting on Monday, February 24, 2014.
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The Partnership for Smarter Growth has been tracking the proposed Shockoe/Boulevard Redevelopment plan, with an emphasis on working towards an open and public process:
PSG has been compiling resources and links related to the Shockoe Stadium / Boulevard debate, with as many viewpoints as possible represented. PSG is also compiling questions for City Council. Scroll to the bottom for the list – many thoughtful and piercing questions have been submitted. Submit yours!
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Don O’Keefe at ArchitectureRichmond weighs in, calling the plan “a surprisingly sensitive recipe for neighborhood revitalization”:
At first skeptical, I have come to think that, amazingly, the plan situates the stadium in the most sensitive way imaginable for the site. Because the stadium flanks rail and highway infrastructure to the west, there is no restriction of east-west auto or pedestrian traffic beyond the existing condition. Aside from that, the only significant street closure is 17th Street which carries little traffic in any case. […] Mixed use space is wrapped around the stadium, reinforcing the ground floor retail norm in Shockoe Bottom.
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An email from Rick Tatnall:
The Mayor’s Shockoe Stadium Death Zone
I am writing to highlight my greatest traffic concern detailed in my previous email about the traffic and parking problems with the proposed development in Shockoe. I call this concern the Mayor’s Shockoe Stadium Death Zone. Due to the significant inadequacies of the I-95 South Franklin Street exit (74-B) combined with the plan to direct parkers immediately into the State Parking Garage, it is guaranteed that cars will queue onto Interstate 95. Attached please find a map graphic that defines and illustrates this incredibly important traffic implication that has been dismissed by the Timmons Traffic Analysis and not addressed at all by the Mayor’s RevitalizeRVA presentation. There is no way to remediate this problem, so if the Mayor’s proposed development is allowed to proceed, people will surely die on Interstate 95 trying to go to a baseball game.
Please pay attention to this life and death consideration.
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Highways and Hallowed Halls has posted Minor League City and Top 10 reasons the Shockoe ballpark is a bad idea:
10. Richmond deserves better. It’s really irresponsible to spend our time and precious resources on something that will eventually be outdated. We can’t devote valuable land in the center of our city to the construction of a building that will be used for 70 days out of the year by a minor league baseball team that could leave. Even if they leave after 30 years, we’ll still be scrambling to find a use for the space. But there is no other use for the space because stadiums can’t be retrofitted or rebuilt. We can’t afford to ignore the river and try, once again, to revitalize Richmond with a big, flashy project that is being celebrated as the future of Richmond.
UPDATED 5:51PM – 70 home games, not 160
16 comments
“There is no way to remediate this problem, so if the Mayor’s proposed development is allowed to proceed, people will surely die on Interstate 95 trying to go to a baseball game.”
If you can’t figure out a way to solve traffic issues, it says more about your lack of imagination and problem solving skills than it does the plan itself. I’m not sold that this is any different than normal rush hour traffic issues but even if it is, to say that there’s no solution is small minded.
“We can’t devote valuable land in the center of our city to the construction of a building that will be used for 160 days out of the year by a minor league baseball team that could leave.”
But we can devote that same valuable land to park our cars there instead.
“Even if they leave after 30 years, we’ll still be scrambling to find a use for the space.”
Well, we could always use it as a parking lot again. I call dibs on home plate.
Excited to be listed on @chpn among other opinions on the Mayor’s ballpark plan: http://t.co/YpNG4Sizad
This guy tatnall has become completely hysterical. We nee more traffic downtown its the city. Many people will walk , bike and take the bus. We don’t need to build a downtown to accommodate fat suburbanites and their suvs.
This is the city. It needs to be urban.
Ohhhhh, this is a “life and death consideration.” Really?????? How about getting a life before worrying about death…
Can we all just realize that Richmond wants to build a stadium in a flood plane… Not to mention that a fist division team asked for a new stadium and the city said no… so we wait a few years and decide to build one for The Flying Squirrels… Traffic patterns not good, there is no development near the current stadium. oooo the list goes on and on why we should build up the existing stadium area and let this area develop as it has been
I wish people would have a better understanding of this project as a whole. The plans for this new stadium are for MUCH more than just that, including a redevelopment of the farmer’s market area, which has become decrepit and rarely used, a mixed use privately funded building (including a grocery store), improved public areas, a hotel, and a historic museum dedicated to the site’s slave history. The baseball field itself will take the place of an empty parking lot. In what way is this a negative. This will boost revenue for the city, revitalize a historic area, and free up the Boulevard site for possible commercial and/or residential space. Once again, all with greatly increase tax revenue.
If the Shockoe project is flushed, the slave heritage site will be flushed with it into more years of obscurity. No matter what pretty words people use about neighbors “standing tall,” opposition to the baseball and economic development parts of this plan is the same thing as opposing the slave heritage site. The parts cannot be practically separated – not by council or any of us.
Everyone who has confidence in the economic development prowess of the Jones administration, please raise your hands.
#8- on what basis are you making that claim?
@10… I don’t think Kroger, a hotel chain, a slave heritage museum, or an apartment complex would be willing to front the $$$’s to fix the city’s sewage infrastructure to make the plan viable. It won’t happen without a huge development…like a stadium or something else that has taxpayer support. Nothing can be built without fixing the sewers first.
#10 – probably from the mayor’s (and his minions) speeches. The mayor seems to have insisted from the beginning that this is all or nothing. Not saying I agree, as I most definitely do not, just that what I’ve read and heard from the current city administration is ‘all or nothing.’
Soon to be a major headline: “Mayor’s office offers ‘incentives’ to council members and influential city entities in exchange for public support of shitty-hall’s plan for the bttm & blvd.”
Open season for favor$. If there is something you want from city hall–and you can move the needle in public support–take a number at the mayor’s office door. Your piece of the developer/land-owner- funded corrupt pie is waiting for you.
@12…so…what would be the incentive for any private developer to invest in this area considering the flooding issue? Are you saying that the financial rewards to any private investor will be so great that they’d be willing to fork out the cash to fix the sewage problem prior to building (on their own dime)?
Read Ed Slipek’s case against the stadium in part 2 of A.R.’s critical discussion of the plan for Shockoe Bottom. http://t.co/prckwZ26dJ
urbngrilla, you sure are going to great lengths to support the status quo of the food desert and to support the continuation of institutionalized segregated zoning. You are the most conservative poster on this site!