Just throwing this out there. This is where the open area/pit is with the fountain in it. Anyone else heard anything?
I have not heard anything on that recently. But several years ago it was mentioned to me as a possible place for a garage.
Why do we keep spending money to reconfigure Main Street if the outcome is myopic development?
Quote from: carltonplace on September 16, 2015, 08:36:11 AM
Why do we keep spending money to reconfigure Main Street if the outcome is myopic development?
There are a couple of surface lots over just a block or two that are begging to be parking garages.
We can and should do much better than a parking garage.
This is what used to be there before the sunken plaza and broken fountain:
(https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3246/3035015212_f6ef0aab84_o.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/5Ccfhu)
Tulsa, OK Brown-Dunkin Department Store (https://flic.kr/p/5Ccfhu)
(http://www.forgottentulsa.com/uploads/4/4/9/7/44970909/9872420_orig.jpg)
Seidenbach's Women's Store
That plaza has such great potential. It's owned by Kanbar, so you never know with them what you will get. I can't see them wanting to spend the money on building a new garage themselves, but I could see them selling off the plaza to someone else to build one.
There were plans a while back to turn the plaza into a restaurant area, that all fell through - still think it would be high value doing something like that. A much smaller scale of Rockefeller Centers plaza area with a sunken restaurant and rebuilt plaza area could really change the feel of that area of downtown. Add some infill on the parking lots next to the plaza and add more seating areas for restaurants on the ground floor and Main Street would be reborn.
Ah yes, the highest, best use of all downtown land: car storage.
Quote from: LandArchPoke on September 16, 2015, 02:23:21 PM
That plaza has such great potential. It's owned by Kanbar, so you never know with them what you will get. I can't see them wanting to spend the money on building a new garage themselves, but I could see them selling off the plaza to someone else to build one.
There were plans a while back to turn the plaza into a restaurant area, that all fell through - still think it would be high value doing something like that. A much smaller scale of Rockefeller Centers plaza area with a sunken restaurant and rebuilt plaza area could really change the feel of that area of downtown. Add some infill on the parking lots next to the plaza and add more seating areas for restaurants on the ground floor and Main Street would be reborn.
There's a sunken plaza in Chicago where the plaza is the outdoor patio for a Cheese Cake Factory location, I think it's Water Tower Place. It's a very cool space that could be easily replaced with a local restaurant.
It is owned by First Place LLC, which is Kandbar's holding company for the First Place Tower (now OneGas?). If you get down in there, there is a tunnel to the Main Street parking garage and two entrances into First Place Tower. There is also a strange side corridor closer to 5th that has a glass wall and a theater/meeting space under Main Street.
The "Main Mall" parking garage was never full when I parked there, particularly when the Cimerex people moved out. I don't imagine it is full now, even with the OneGas people in there. The World is adding a parking structure on their property too - if I heard correctly. The next closest parking is the MidCon parking garage.