News   Jul 12, 2024
199 Church Showcases Heritage Facade and Artwork at Street Level
 1.4K     0 
News   Jul 12, 2024
Six Points Plaza Redevelopment Advances With 36-Storey First Phase
 1.1K     1 
News   Jul 12, 2024
Trading Spaces: Can Real Estate Conversion Help Boost Housing Supply?
 396     0 

Charles-Hayden Parking Garage (+2s) COMPLETE

There should be a button beside the Like button for "Heh!".

42
 
From today, this is really coming along.
IMG_2740.JPG
 

Attachments

  • IMG_2740.JPG
    IMG_2740.JPG
    1.3 MB · Views: 778
It just kills me everytime I see an update here that this is happening at this location in a city of 6.5 million people in 2016.
 
ADRM said:
It just kills me everytime I see an update here that this is happening at this location in a city of 6.5 million people in 2016.
Click to expand...

Why? Other big cities still have parking all over the place. Go to New York, London, Paris, Tokyo... they don't just allow you to park in the downtown core, but they innovate to make it efficient and more useful to the public. Those cities use parked cars for traffic calming for example - people tend to drive slower when streets are narrower and have parked cars on them. They've built automated parking systems and car elevators to be able to park even more cars in as little space as possible. In Barcelona they have mini-parking lots set up at a lot of street intersections to create a buffer between turning vehicles and the sidewalk.
 
amnesiajune said:
Why? Other big cities still have parking all over the place. Go to New York, London, Paris, Tokyo... they don't just allow you to park in the downtown core, but they innovate to make it efficient and more useful to the public. Those cities use parked cars for traffic calming for example - people tend to drive slower when streets are narrower and have parked cars on them. They've built automated parking systems and car elevators to be able to park even more cars in as little space as possible.
Click to expand...

Because there are vastly better types of buildings in which to accommodate exactly the same amount of parking without restricting the use of that extremely valuable plot of land to that single use.

Innovating to make it efficient, as you say, is exactly what I'd prefer to see, and is not what's happening here.
 
ADRM said:
Because there are vastly better types of buildings in which to accommodate exactly the same amount of parking without restricting the use of that extremely valuable plot of land to that single use.
Click to expand...

Like someone else pointed out, this particular plot of land is complicated by the subway tracks running underneath it. And while it would be nice to have some open space on the roof, that makes future expansion more expensive and disruptive. This current expansion probably wouldn't have happened if there was a park built on the roof, and that would mean that new land would be used up to increase the city's parking capacity.
 
amnesiajune said:
Like someone else pointed out, this particular plot of land is complicated by the subway tracks running underneath it. And while it would be nice to have some open space on the roof, that makes future expansion more expensive and disruptive. This current expansion probably wouldn't have happened if there was a park built on the roof, and that would mean that new land would be used up to increase the city's parking capacity.
Click to expand...

It's a good point, but I do wonder if there was a middle ground that wasn't explored (perhaps due to cost reasons, but who knows?) -- i.e. there's been discussion on here about adding a park or some other type of community space on top, but if they could add two storeys, I wonder how many they could have added? Could there have been provision to add a different use with another storey or two or three? A community centre? TCHC? Market housing on top a parking structure? A daycare?

Mostly musing rather than criticizing any party in particular, and seeing additional parking being added on valuable land is precisely the type of use that gets the mind working!
 
You must log in or register to post here.

Back
Top