The third time may prove a charm for the Muller family of Lou's Village fame.
After two deals to sell their former restaurant site to home builders fell through over the last two years, the Mullers have entered into an agreement to sell the 5-acre tract to the Bay Area's SummerHill Homes.
The deal is supposed to close in January. Tim Muller did not disclose a purchase price, but did say they have received "substantial deposits" from SummerHill, giving him confidence the deal will close at last.
SummerHill plans to stick with the current plans for the property, which abuts San Jose's San Carlos Street between downtown and Interstate 880, says Mr. Muller. Those plans call for 95 townhomes, with 11 live-work units abutting San Carlos and a 20 percent affordability component. The notion is to maintain the generally commercial flavor of San Carlos by having small businesses, such as accountants and lawyers, front the street with living quarters behind.
SummerHill, an active South Bay builder, thinks the site and the homes' anticipated $600,000s price points make a good match for the market today, says Joe Head, SummerHill president and chief executive.
The market isn't what it was a year and a half ago, he admits, but that doesn't mean there isn't opportunity. Buyers continue to show interest in what Mr. Head describes as the "mid-town" area of San Jose -- near to downtown -- and appear to like the rejuvenation the central city is seeing.
Mr. Muller is now working as a vice president for Alliance Title, helping to beef up its commercial title business.
San Jose ready to sell lot near old city hall
The City of San Jose intends to sell a parking lot near the old city hall building for residential development in a deal that is expected to top $27 million.
The 7.45-acre property, known as the E-lot, lies between North San Pedro Street and the Guadalupe freeway just south of the San Jose Police Department.
It would be the first attempt by the city to dispose of a portion of the property it all but vacated in August 2005 when it moved into the new City Hall on Santa Clara Street.
The city's plans were disclosed Aug. 31 when the San Jose City Council met with the Santa Clara County Supervisors to discuss the future of the old city hall site and other matters. The old city hall site is adjacent to the county government complex.
The estimated value of the land was contained in an appraisal dated Aug. 24 that assumes a high density residential zoning. Deputy City Manager Dan McFadden said the land has the potential for 17 to 65 housing units per acre. The $27 million is a conservative estimate based on 30 units per acre, he said.
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The plan is not a done deal. First, the city must decide if it wants to sell all the property or keep about three acres now used for parking for the police department. Leaving out that three acre section, which fronts on Mission Street, a sale would net just $17 million. The process is expected to take 18 months, Mr. McFadden said.
RREEF buys Summerwood Apartments
Money manager RREEF has acquired a Santa Clara apartment complex for $105 million, or $224,000 for each unit sold.
The deal is among the largest in Santa Clara County as measured by dollar value and the size of the 468-unit Summerwood Apartments.
RREEF, which has a main office in San Francisco and is part of the Deutsche Bank Group, intends to undertake a large-scale renovation of the complex, which is more than 30 years old.
Pasadena-based Hoffman Associates was the seller. It was the only asset that Hoffman retained in the Bay Area. Privately-held Hoffman had owned and operated the apartment complex since its construction in 1970.
The seller was represented by CB Richard Ellis' Bill Huberty, Matt Holmes and John Eichelberger out of San Francisco.
Jay Paul to sell Pacific Shores Center
Jay Paul Co. is selling its Pacific Shores Center in Redwood City, a 1.7 million square-foot, waterfront office campus where PDL BioPharma Inc. recently announced it was moving its headquarters.
The San Francisco developer has retained brokerage Eastdil Secured as its exclusive advisor for the deal.
In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on July 6, PDL said it had agreed to sublease just over 283,000 square feet at Pacific Shores from Openwave Systems Inc. through April 2013. From that date until December 2021, it agreed to lease the property directly from Jay Paul.
In total, Pacific Shores is 84 percent leased, according to offering documents that Eastdil is circulating announcing that the property has come on the market. Those documents do not include an offering price.
According to Jay Paul's Web site, Pacific Shores was a $500 million development and sits on 106 acres. The complex includes a 130-acre wetlands preservation project and more than $30 million in infrastructure costs.
Westcore buys Mission Falls Business Park
San Diego-based Westcore Properties, an active buyer in the Bay Area since it entered the market in 2004, has acquired Mission Falls Business Park in Fremont for $11.2 million.
The seller was Mission Falls LLC of Pleasanton.
The property includes three buildings with 128,000 square feet on 7.7 acres.
Two of the three buildings are vacant, and Westcore plans an extensive interior renovation, including division into offices of 1,500 to 5,000 square feet. The company plans to sell the units as condominiums.
Westcore's financial partner in the deal is Buchanan Street Partners. Its lender is Countrywide Financial.
The deal was brokered by Colin Feitchtmeir, Tyler Kemp, Kent Hillhouse and Steve Horton, all of Santa Clara's CPS Commercial Property Services.
http://sanjose.bizjournals.com/sanjose/stories/2006/09/11/newscolumn3.html?page=3
Saturday, March 17, 2007
Clutter Busters Set the Stage for Selling Peoples Homes
Erasing what you consider to be the comfy “personality” of your home may not be a bad idea at selling time, as these before-and-after images prove.
There's only one time I could ever imagine allowing John Carter past the front door of our eccentrically furnished, colourfully decorated, and undeniably cluttered house. And that's when we sell it. Because what Carter and his colleagues at DEKORA do, using their various backgrounds in set design and marketing, is change your home around so it finds a new owner as quickly as possible. The idea of living on a movie or TV set seems a bit Stepford homeish, but then I remember open houses and being immediately turned off by grid-system shelving, empty bookshelves, and scary Spanish Provincial coffee tables. Maybe he has a point.
The technical term for the transformations wrought by this West Vancouverbased year-old company is home staging. "You can embrace it or ignore it," says Carter over coffee at White Spot, "it" being the first, vital impression that your place makes on potential buyers. "The downfall of ignoring it is a slower sale or lower price," he says. A 1999 study done by Coldwell Banker Realty in California reported that staged homes in the Los Altos area sold more quickly and for higher prices than unstaged homes. Carter cites one Tsawwassen house that sat on the market for two years before some astute rearrangement hooked a new owner.
The painful truth is that everything that gives your rooms their personality--family snapshots, shelves jam-packed with vintage finds, the dark green you agonized over in the paint store--can be anathema to other people. Doesn't it feel like slaughtering your firstborn to lose all that? "The way you sell your house is not the way you live in it," says Carter. Besides, you've already made the emotional break, you're going to be packing stuff anyway, and it's just a case of getting rid of that flaky old sofa now instead of a month down the road.
DEKORA works directly with homeowners, with or without their realtor present. (Realtors love home staging, no prizes for guessing why.) A consultation is $95 an hour (two to three hours is normal), which gets you a written report suggesting, for instance: "Lampshades on existing lamps should be replaced with new, un-pleated shades in a natural linen or homespun fabric... If possible, take the speakers down from the valances, and remove dog beds and the like when showing the house." New paint is a common recommendation. "We try to stick to neutral palettes to appeal to as many people as possible," says Carter. DEKORA is not in the major-renovation business, but it does organize minor cosmetic changes like replacing scuffed Arborite counters with new ones (or Maxim with Architectural Digest). The company can also provide a free estimate with room-by-room pricing based on them doing the work.
"We're totally up-front and honest," he says. "We may even love the way...[the owners have] decorated but it's not appropriate." They may also point out that 15 years' worth of newspapers and receipts lying around isn't appealing either. They handle the flip side, too, when someone has already moved, leaving bare rooms that need to be dressed with rented furniture.
Carter turns on his laptop to show some case studies. Here's a before shot of a 750-square-foot West Side apartment with a funky old blue armchair heaped with cushions. It looks personal and lived in...by someone else. "We're taking the show-suite mentality," he says (as developers do with brand-new buildings), which, in this apartment, meant installing different furniture, including a smaller-scale coffee table and wall mirror to give the impression of more space.
Looking at more visuals emphasises the positive--or negative--impact of ostensibly minor details. Replace that froufrou bedding with crisp tailored linens in brown and off-white, as DEKORA did for one client, and you have a setting that looks cool and modern rather than Tammy Wynette wannabe. A living-room after has less on the coffee table, colour splashes via small crimson cushions, and a big fern in the corner. The faux Vincent van Gogh over the fireplace stayed (!), but overall the place looks cleaner and tidier. Before: a whale-printed shower curtain, a tropical-fish-printed bath mat, and hair products uncaged; after: reeds in a glass vase, towels (white) neatly rolled in a wicker basket, and a tasteful botanical-print shower curtain. It's as anonymous as a hotel bathroom, but to the next possible owner, this is a good thing. Carter compares home staging to a job interview: "It's like putting a shirt and tie on..."
Projects take from a few hours to five days and, ballparking it, you're looking at $3,500 to $5,000 for a completely redone and redecorated 750-square-foot apartment. Still, this Extreme Makeover approach can definitely pay for itself (info at www.dekora.com or 604-876-4355), and there are tricks you can do yourself to make a place more salable. "Edit and clean," says Carter. "If you don't do anything else, do those."
http://www.dekora.com/news-media-urban_living.htm
There's only one time I could ever imagine allowing John Carter past the front door of our eccentrically furnished, colourfully decorated, and undeniably cluttered house. And that's when we sell it. Because what Carter and his colleagues at DEKORA do, using their various backgrounds in set design and marketing, is change your home around so it finds a new owner as quickly as possible. The idea of living on a movie or TV set seems a bit Stepford homeish, but then I remember open houses and being immediately turned off by grid-system shelving, empty bookshelves, and scary Spanish Provincial coffee tables. Maybe he has a point.
The technical term for the transformations wrought by this West Vancouverbased year-old company is home staging. "You can embrace it or ignore it," says Carter over coffee at White Spot, "it" being the first, vital impression that your place makes on potential buyers. "The downfall of ignoring it is a slower sale or lower price," he says. A 1999 study done by Coldwell Banker Realty in California reported that staged homes in the Los Altos area sold more quickly and for higher prices than unstaged homes. Carter cites one Tsawwassen house that sat on the market for two years before some astute rearrangement hooked a new owner.
The painful truth is that everything that gives your rooms their personality--family snapshots, shelves jam-packed with vintage finds, the dark green you agonized over in the paint store--can be anathema to other people. Doesn't it feel like slaughtering your firstborn to lose all that? "The way you sell your house is not the way you live in it," says Carter. Besides, you've already made the emotional break, you're going to be packing stuff anyway, and it's just a case of getting rid of that flaky old sofa now instead of a month down the road.
DEKORA works directly with homeowners, with or without their realtor present. (Realtors love home staging, no prizes for guessing why.) A consultation is $95 an hour (two to three hours is normal), which gets you a written report suggesting, for instance: "Lampshades on existing lamps should be replaced with new, un-pleated shades in a natural linen or homespun fabric... If possible, take the speakers down from the valances, and remove dog beds and the like when showing the house." New paint is a common recommendation. "We try to stick to neutral palettes to appeal to as many people as possible," says Carter. DEKORA is not in the major-renovation business, but it does organize minor cosmetic changes like replacing scuffed Arborite counters with new ones (or Maxim with Architectural Digest). The company can also provide a free estimate with room-by-room pricing based on them doing the work.
"We're totally up-front and honest," he says. "We may even love the way...[the owners have] decorated but it's not appropriate." They may also point out that 15 years' worth of newspapers and receipts lying around isn't appealing either. They handle the flip side, too, when someone has already moved, leaving bare rooms that need to be dressed with rented furniture.
Carter turns on his laptop to show some case studies. Here's a before shot of a 750-square-foot West Side apartment with a funky old blue armchair heaped with cushions. It looks personal and lived in...by someone else. "We're taking the show-suite mentality," he says (as developers do with brand-new buildings), which, in this apartment, meant installing different furniture, including a smaller-scale coffee table and wall mirror to give the impression of more space.
Looking at more visuals emphasises the positive--or negative--impact of ostensibly minor details. Replace that froufrou bedding with crisp tailored linens in brown and off-white, as DEKORA did for one client, and you have a setting that looks cool and modern rather than Tammy Wynette wannabe. A living-room after has less on the coffee table, colour splashes via small crimson cushions, and a big fern in the corner. The faux Vincent van Gogh over the fireplace stayed (!), but overall the place looks cleaner and tidier. Before: a whale-printed shower curtain, a tropical-fish-printed bath mat, and hair products uncaged; after: reeds in a glass vase, towels (white) neatly rolled in a wicker basket, and a tasteful botanical-print shower curtain. It's as anonymous as a hotel bathroom, but to the next possible owner, this is a good thing. Carter compares home staging to a job interview: "It's like putting a shirt and tie on..."
Projects take from a few hours to five days and, ballparking it, you're looking at $3,500 to $5,000 for a completely redone and redecorated 750-square-foot apartment. Still, this Extreme Makeover approach can definitely pay for itself (info at www.dekora.com or 604-876-4355), and there are tricks you can do yourself to make a place more salable. "Edit and clean," says Carter. "If you don't do anything else, do those."
http://www.dekora.com/news-media-urban_living.htm
Schizophrenia linked to urban living
There's no scientific evidence that city life makes people more depressed than rural life, but schizophrenia rates do differ significantly between the 2 settings, a recent International Conference on Urban Health was told.
In the past 10 years, major birth cohort studies in developed countries have revealed that the incidence of schizophrenia is about 2 times higher among people in cities, reported Dr. Ezra Susser, head of epidemiology at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health.
"It's not clear if it is birth in cities, or upbringing in cities, but there is something about city living that increases risk," he said. Where you are born and brought up is a larger contributing factor to risk than genetic predisposition. Indeed, 34.6% of cases would be prevented if people were not born and brought up in cities, compared to 5.4% of cases that would be prevented if people did not have parents or siblings who suffered from the illness, Susser told participants at the New York conference.
The higher rate in urban areas may be due to environmental toxins, the social context that people live in, and contagion, including prenatal infections.
The studies also reveal a "dose response": the more urban the setting, the higher the risk. "This is one of the most solid findings in schizophrenia today," said Susser. But the association with urban living has not received enough attention because current research centres on neural imaging and pharmacology, Susser says. — Ann Silversides, Toronto
http://www.cmaj.ca/cgi/content/full/170/4/456
In the past 10 years, major birth cohort studies in developed countries have revealed that the incidence of schizophrenia is about 2 times higher among people in cities, reported Dr. Ezra Susser, head of epidemiology at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health.
"It's not clear if it is birth in cities, or upbringing in cities, but there is something about city living that increases risk," he said. Where you are born and brought up is a larger contributing factor to risk than genetic predisposition. Indeed, 34.6% of cases would be prevented if people were not born and brought up in cities, compared to 5.4% of cases that would be prevented if people did not have parents or siblings who suffered from the illness, Susser told participants at the New York conference.
The higher rate in urban areas may be due to environmental toxins, the social context that people live in, and contagion, including prenatal infections.
The studies also reveal a "dose response": the more urban the setting, the higher the risk. "This is one of the most solid findings in schizophrenia today," said Susser. But the association with urban living has not received enough attention because current research centres on neural imaging and pharmacology, Susser says. — Ann Silversides, Toronto
http://www.cmaj.ca/cgi/content/full/170/4/456
Friday, March 16, 2007
Water Sensitive Urban Design
Well, that's what we call it in Australia anyway, rain water tanks, rain gardens, biofiltration swales, wetlands, sand filters, gross pollutant traps are all critical parts of residential and urban stormwater management.
Planetizen points to a recent article in the Urban Land magazine, (usually subscription only, but follow the link below for this article).
Vogel believes that Seattle and Portland have come closest to designing natural stormwater management for an urban density that would please urbanists of all stripes. "Portland's 12th Avenue is a model for fitting nature-based stormwater management into the traditional street network in moderate- to high-density areas. In bringing even more of nature's functions into such areas, Seattle's "Swale on Yale" and Taylor 28 move further in the direction of...high-performance infrastructure.
http://urbanworkbench.com/water-sensitive-urban-design
Planetizen points to a recent article in the Urban Land magazine, (usually subscription only, but follow the link below for this article).
Vogel believes that Seattle and Portland have come closest to designing natural stormwater management for an urban density that would please urbanists of all stripes. "Portland's 12th Avenue is a model for fitting nature-based stormwater management into the traditional street network in moderate- to high-density areas. In bringing even more of nature's functions into such areas, Seattle's "Swale on Yale" and Taylor 28 move further in the direction of...high-performance infrastructure.
http://urbanworkbench.com/water-sensitive-urban-design
Newcastles Problems The Alleys
Downtown Newcastle is about halfway between a seedy late-night no-go zone and a hip vibrant small downtown core. At the seventh largest city in Australia, Newcastle commands great beaches, a great lifestyle and affordable living, but downtown is a mess. Here's my take on why...
Alleys
What makes a city lane or alleyway so special? Why are these often forgotten service routes so maligned? Why do so many cities want to develop them out and get rid of them?
Often the setting for fight scenes in movies, or a criminal author's latest murder plot, these hidden spaces are destined to hold some mystery, even some attraction, but more often than not revulsion. Even in my research for this article, I encountered the stench of urine soaked doorways, the disused back routes into buildings with pretty front facades. Alleys are perceived as scary places, but is there room to change the common view, get over the fear? More after the jump...
Changing Times
Alleys were once the service side of businesses, where deliveries were made and behind the scenes transactions were made. Alleys were where the nightsoil man did his business and where the workers too poor to own a house, made their home, a kind of secondary housing society. The history of alleys goes back to roman cities such as Pompeii and Rome, but in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries as services and deliveries became more engineered and distributed, many went underground and alleys became havens for crime.
These spaces, tells architect David Winslow in the San Francisco Chronicle, "are primarily underused because there has been a disinvestment in them." David as a student in Rome, while researching for his thesis twenty years ago walked the narrowest streets and alleys, vicoli and found them packed with vibrant activity. He compared these to streets in his native American alleys, and considered how city streets could become more walkable. His answer represents one of the big themes in the New Urbanism movement, "small businesses catering to neighborhood needs, all within walking distance".
Newcastle's Alleys
In Newcastle there are three main alleys, which are pictured in this article. I wish I had some before shots, but we'll focus on the "afters" anyway. The "befores" are probably pretty obvious, a series of traditional alleys ripe for urban renewal.
In 2004 Newcastle City Council approved a development application for a multi million dollar installation to protect a weekend market place, in the downtown area. At the time, these markets were tipped to transform the image of downtown Newcastle, as a weekday office-work-only zone, to a weekend small business profit zone. At least that's the picture that the public were presented with.
But within a year the markets had failed, investors were scrambling for their cash, and all the effort and infrastructure invested lies dormant.
What Happened to the Markets?
Much social commentary in newspapers and around town sought to provide answers to this question. Aside from the quality of the markets or the cost of hiring a stall, what elements of the urban fabric could have been better managed to make this venture a success? The first and most obvious item was Newcastle City Council's simultaneous introduction of parking meters through out the entirety of the downtown core almost to the very weekend that the markets were set to open. Parking availability has long been a sore point for workers and shop keepers in the downtown area, and the introduction of metered weekend parking just made things worse for weekend trade. Once the initial excitement of the markets was over, patronage dropped rapidly with parking officers handing out $60 fines all around town. Parking isn't the focus of this article, rather it is used as an example to show the poor level of combined planning in Council.
How Could the Alleys be Better Included in the Urban City?
There are a number of things that could make these alleyways better;
* Randomness - random surfaces, cobblestones, mismatched surfaces, walls, windows, surprises, places to get lost in the crowd or a maze of streets. All of these things make alleyways special places, things that shouldn't be designed out of the space. It's the random that makes these places interesting.
* Use of space - mixed use development is important, residential, small commercial, stall holders, parking, shared pedestrian routes, bike parking, public seating, vegetation, cafes. The key is not to exclude, but rather to include, normal densities shouldn't really apply, many of these spaces would not meet fire department access requirements, for example 6m wide clear space in NSW, Australia), instead an acknowledgement that the space is being better used and provide a suitable level of alternate fire service for the area.
* Accessibility - One of the things that really bugs me about Newcastle's alleys is in the effort to meet accessibility standards, the whole nature of the alley has been destroyed, for an idea of what I'm talking about check out these photos...
Newcastle urban design alleys Newcastle urban design alleys
This space is unusable, during the short time that the markets were running, there were stalls set up on each turn-around platform, almost defeating the very purpose of the turn-around's! Now the existing grade of the lane here was steeper than the prescribed grade of 1 in 14 for wheelchairs, but can anyone tell me in all honesty that this is actually better?
What works... Incentives
Now, I know there is a lot of competition between Sydney and Melbourne, but I really think that Melbourne picked up on the international lane and alleyway trends for revitalization earlier on than Sydney, this from a recent Sydney Morning Herald Article...
Cr Moore's attempt to sidestep the inevitable comparison was destined to fail yesterday when she announced an overhaul of 47 forgotten laneways in the city. In a push to return some "energy and soul" to the city, the council will give businesses and arts bodies incentives to open wine bars, hole-in-the-wall cafes and public art installations along the walls of the city's neglected alleys.
Source: Forget Melbourne, changing lanes is right up city's alley - National
Incentives. what a good idea! Rather than charging for parking, let businesses give out free parking vouchers, rather than charging for currently unused or underused footpath space to be taken for cafe seating, lay off on charging for two years or something like that. Give businesses who are interested in revitalizing downtown a break, standard solutions will not draw businesses or the public into these areas, I was the only person walking through this alley at 8:30 in the morning on a weekday, tens of thousands of people work downtown, what's going on?
http://urbanworkbench.com/newcastles-problems-the-alleys
Alleys
What makes a city lane or alleyway so special? Why are these often forgotten service routes so maligned? Why do so many cities want to develop them out and get rid of them?
Often the setting for fight scenes in movies, or a criminal author's latest murder plot, these hidden spaces are destined to hold some mystery, even some attraction, but more often than not revulsion. Even in my research for this article, I encountered the stench of urine soaked doorways, the disused back routes into buildings with pretty front facades. Alleys are perceived as scary places, but is there room to change the common view, get over the fear? More after the jump...
Changing Times
Alleys were once the service side of businesses, where deliveries were made and behind the scenes transactions were made. Alleys were where the nightsoil man did his business and where the workers too poor to own a house, made their home, a kind of secondary housing society. The history of alleys goes back to roman cities such as Pompeii and Rome, but in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries as services and deliveries became more engineered and distributed, many went underground and alleys became havens for crime.
These spaces, tells architect David Winslow in the San Francisco Chronicle, "are primarily underused because there has been a disinvestment in them." David as a student in Rome, while researching for his thesis twenty years ago walked the narrowest streets and alleys, vicoli and found them packed with vibrant activity. He compared these to streets in his native American alleys, and considered how city streets could become more walkable. His answer represents one of the big themes in the New Urbanism movement, "small businesses catering to neighborhood needs, all within walking distance".
Newcastle's Alleys
In Newcastle there are three main alleys, which are pictured in this article. I wish I had some before shots, but we'll focus on the "afters" anyway. The "befores" are probably pretty obvious, a series of traditional alleys ripe for urban renewal.
In 2004 Newcastle City Council approved a development application for a multi million dollar installation to protect a weekend market place, in the downtown area. At the time, these markets were tipped to transform the image of downtown Newcastle, as a weekday office-work-only zone, to a weekend small business profit zone. At least that's the picture that the public were presented with.
But within a year the markets had failed, investors were scrambling for their cash, and all the effort and infrastructure invested lies dormant.
What Happened to the Markets?
Much social commentary in newspapers and around town sought to provide answers to this question. Aside from the quality of the markets or the cost of hiring a stall, what elements of the urban fabric could have been better managed to make this venture a success? The first and most obvious item was Newcastle City Council's simultaneous introduction of parking meters through out the entirety of the downtown core almost to the very weekend that the markets were set to open. Parking availability has long been a sore point for workers and shop keepers in the downtown area, and the introduction of metered weekend parking just made things worse for weekend trade. Once the initial excitement of the markets was over, patronage dropped rapidly with parking officers handing out $60 fines all around town. Parking isn't the focus of this article, rather it is used as an example to show the poor level of combined planning in Council.
How Could the Alleys be Better Included in the Urban City?
There are a number of things that could make these alleyways better;
* Randomness - random surfaces, cobblestones, mismatched surfaces, walls, windows, surprises, places to get lost in the crowd or a maze of streets. All of these things make alleyways special places, things that shouldn't be designed out of the space. It's the random that makes these places interesting.
* Use of space - mixed use development is important, residential, small commercial, stall holders, parking, shared pedestrian routes, bike parking, public seating, vegetation, cafes. The key is not to exclude, but rather to include, normal densities shouldn't really apply, many of these spaces would not meet fire department access requirements, for example 6m wide clear space in NSW, Australia), instead an acknowledgement that the space is being better used and provide a suitable level of alternate fire service for the area.
* Accessibility - One of the things that really bugs me about Newcastle's alleys is in the effort to meet accessibility standards, the whole nature of the alley has been destroyed, for an idea of what I'm talking about check out these photos...
Newcastle urban design alleys Newcastle urban design alleys
This space is unusable, during the short time that the markets were running, there were stalls set up on each turn-around platform, almost defeating the very purpose of the turn-around's! Now the existing grade of the lane here was steeper than the prescribed grade of 1 in 14 for wheelchairs, but can anyone tell me in all honesty that this is actually better?
What works... Incentives
Now, I know there is a lot of competition between Sydney and Melbourne, but I really think that Melbourne picked up on the international lane and alleyway trends for revitalization earlier on than Sydney, this from a recent Sydney Morning Herald Article...
Cr Moore's attempt to sidestep the inevitable comparison was destined to fail yesterday when she announced an overhaul of 47 forgotten laneways in the city. In a push to return some "energy and soul" to the city, the council will give businesses and arts bodies incentives to open wine bars, hole-in-the-wall cafes and public art installations along the walls of the city's neglected alleys.
Source: Forget Melbourne, changing lanes is right up city's alley - National
Incentives. what a good idea! Rather than charging for parking, let businesses give out free parking vouchers, rather than charging for currently unused or underused footpath space to be taken for cafe seating, lay off on charging for two years or something like that. Give businesses who are interested in revitalizing downtown a break, standard solutions will not draw businesses or the public into these areas, I was the only person walking through this alley at 8:30 in the morning on a weekday, tens of thousands of people work downtown, what's going on?
http://urbanworkbench.com/newcastles-problems-the-alleys
Reflecting on new ways of urban living
Sadly, not many people have heard of Jane Jacobs.
The writer and "urbanologist" died last week at the age of 89. Her 1961 book "Death and Life of Great American Cities," a defense of her Greenwich Village neighborhood and a critique of city planners, was her most influential work. It changed the way we think.
Jacobs was a tenacious thinker and self-educated woman. Drawing many of her conclusions from empirical evidence, she believed that cities thrived through organic growth rather than elitist planning boards typically out of touch with residents.
The antithesis of the pointy-headed modern intellectual, Jacobs also was a character. After being booted from a city council hearing in 1961 for acting up, she dryly noted, "We had been ladies and gentlemen and only got pushed around."
When I learned that Jacobs had passed on, I wondered what would she have thought of Denver. A place where a city planning board must approve every patio. Where citizens must often deal with draconian zoning regulations.
What would she make of our countless prefabricated neighborhoods and standardized architecture? What would she make of Lowry and Stapleton?
If you haven't driven through Stapleton lately, you should. It's a mind-boggling experiment in New Urbanism, a movement Jacobs is often credited with inspiring. A pedestrian-friendly neighborhood, high density and eco-friendly - in theory.
Randal O'Toole, director of the Center for the American Dream and a Jacobs critic, claims it's impossible to know what she would have thought about these sprawling city 'hoods, because she wasn't a particularly "systematic or rational person."
Nevertheless, I suspect that she wouldn't have found Stapleton to be exceptionally urban at all. I suspect she would have viewed it as the suburbs being imported into the city.
After all, there's a 750,000-square-foot big-box shopping center in Quebec Square, featuring a Wal-Mart Supercenter, a Sam's Club and a Home Depot. The parking lot accommodates thousands of cars. NorthField in Stapleton already features stores larger than Luxembourg, and more are being built.
Nothing wrong with business. But hardly urban. And then again, maybe urbanites want a slice of the suburbs?
There is an undeniable migration out of the city. Even with the expansions of Lowry, Stapleton and LoDo, Denver population dropped in the years between 2000 and 2004.
And Denver isn't unique. Almost every large metropolitan area had more people move out during that four-year period, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
Certainly, Jacobs was no fan of the suburbs. She hated cars. Yet, she never advocated coercing citizens into living in these utopian urban enclaves.
"She specifically said that she didn't want anybody to use her writing to apply to the suburbs, or small towns or smaller cities that aren't great cities," says O'Toole. "Yet, that's what urban planners are doing. They are saying we should make every neighborhood into a walkable mixed-use neighborhood like Jane Jacobs' Greenwich Village."
These days, O'Toole feels that government, instead of imposing low densities on inner cities, has imposed high-density neighborhoods on the suburbs.
"What we see in Stapleton is urban planners who read Jane Jacobs and said: 'That's a great neighborhood! Let's make everyone live that way!"' says O'Toole. "Well, she was writing the book to defend her neighborhood from urban planners who wanted to tear it down."
The closest we come to her remarking on Stapleton is a 2001 interview with Reason magazine. She claimed that New Urbanists "want to have lively centers in the places that they develop, where people run into each other doing errands and that sort of thing. And yet ... they don't seem to have a sense of the anatomy of these hearts. ... They've placed them as if they were shopping centers."
Then again, maybe we've found a third way. A little bit of both worlds.
Either way, Jacobs made us think.
http://www.denverpost.com/ci_3755790
More Urban Living Lofts Planned for Revitalizing Detroit
Detroit may not be the ideal place to live in America. The metropolitan area faces a super-divide, with some of the richest suburbs and poorest inner-city neighborhoods in the country. But, downtown Detroit is slowly starting to turn the corner. I had the chance to walk around downtown about two years ago and was actually impressed by what I saw. They are really trying to revitalize the downtown. There are some gorgeous buildings, breath-taking views, and beautiful art pieces downtown. The connectivity is not bad either. The problem that I noticed: there were no people! I was walking around on a beautiful fall Saturday afternoon and there should have been tons of people. This made downtown feel a bit eerie. Hopefully this is going to change soon.
One reason this may change is because of Detroit’s commitment and encouragement of downtown living. The city has established Neighborhood Enterprise Zone designations that gives incentive for new developments, including sharply reduced property taxes for up to 12 years. Two loft projects currently underway downtown are benefiting from these designations, Grinnell Place Lofts and Research Lofts. Both of these projects are industrial to residential conversions which often make for great lofts. Grinnell Place is located very close to Tiger Stadium and Research Place is near the expanding Wayne State University. Apparently there are numerous urban living lofts in the vicinity of Comerica Park and they have been quite successful, although I did not get to that area on my last visit.
I wish there were more buildings like these to convert into lofts in Sacramento. There are not that many industrial buildings that are good for loft conversions in the downtown area. This could be a significant niche for Detroit. Downtown Detroit has serious potential, and if they make the commitment to fixing the streets and making them more pedestrian-friendly, it could start the rebirth of the city. Please visit my photo gallery of Detroit, you might be surprised with what you see.
http://www.walkableneighborhoods.com/article/more-urban-living-lofts-planned-for-revitalizing-detroit
One reason this may change is because of Detroit’s commitment and encouragement of downtown living. The city has established Neighborhood Enterprise Zone designations that gives incentive for new developments, including sharply reduced property taxes for up to 12 years. Two loft projects currently underway downtown are benefiting from these designations, Grinnell Place Lofts and Research Lofts. Both of these projects are industrial to residential conversions which often make for great lofts. Grinnell Place is located very close to Tiger Stadium and Research Place is near the expanding Wayne State University. Apparently there are numerous urban living lofts in the vicinity of Comerica Park and they have been quite successful, although I did not get to that area on my last visit.
I wish there were more buildings like these to convert into lofts in Sacramento. There are not that many industrial buildings that are good for loft conversions in the downtown area. This could be a significant niche for Detroit. Downtown Detroit has serious potential, and if they make the commitment to fixing the streets and making them more pedestrian-friendly, it could start the rebirth of the city. Please visit my photo gallery of Detroit, you might be surprised with what you see.
http://www.walkableneighborhoods.com/article/more-urban-living-lofts-planned-for-revitalizing-detroit
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