As these developments progress, Parcel 4 looks more and more out of place as a big empty gravel lot.
I think this will probably be the most controversial of all. I think this is the location where that old hotel/water park idea was suggested many years ago. What is appropriate across from the CMHR? What is needed? More residential? more parking? More green space? Or something that has't been suggested yet? There's always the archaeological aspect to be considered, as well as any contaminated soil from the railroad eras.
Am I opening up a can of worms here????
The development framework for parcel four is a continuation of Railside, more mixed used courtyards. Of course that could change as market conditions change over time.
The construction cam photos look funny to me. It is such an odd construction site. All these different projects by different developers and different contractors being built in a large parking lot.
It looks like some kind of Community College job fair type of display where you can visit and see how things are built and which trade you might like to try out.
I firmly believe the City should build the St. Mary Ave extension, and close the Pioneer/ William Stephenson throughpass to public vehicles. Maybe use it for transit only. This would create a P&M bypass along York/St. Mary for vehicles going east-west through downtown. Similar to the Donald/Smith couplet for north-south traffic.
This would split a piece off from Parcel 4, which could then be used to create a space next to the ballpark. And pull the traffic flow away from the P&M snake.
Say if you were travelling east on Portage, there would be signage and adjusted lanes starting at Broadway depending upon where you want to go. Such as "St. Mary's road use Broadway" "Provencher Ave use York." And route the roads that way. Same going west coming from Provencher. Access to Portage off of the side streets.
Chicago River is probably a bad analogue though. The river doesn't actually drain much of anything. In fact the flow is coming in from the lake, not out to the lake and is highly regulated by control structures.
In the Assiniboine's case, while there are control structures, the River drains a large watershed. To your point though, something could probably be done as we've discussed many times.
I get that the Chicago river isn't like a real river, but my point is more about how high the walkway is above the water line. Some on here were saying that you would have to raise it to a level (like 6 to 8 feet) to avoid flood level water heights. That would ruin the aesthetic of being right at the water level.
I say who cares about being right at the water level when in recent years the walkway was underwater for decent number of weeks in our short spring and summer. I would make the trade every day of the year for the Chicago Riverwalk or the riverwalks of pretty much any other major city over our often flooded and unusable (natural) walkway.
The flow was reversed for sanitary reasons since the city's drinking water comes from the lake and sewage was going into the river. In any event, I would concur. I have always thought we should do something similar to the riverwalk in Chicago or any number of cities around the world with quays or riverwalks of their own.
water level thing wouldn't be that big of an issue nearly all of the time. Even the Seine in Paris floods every now and then. but if the payoff is that we have an awesome more useable amenity, I would say that's well worth it.
To add to that, people would probably actually use it as an active transportation mode. Raise it 6-8 feet, extend it all the way to Assiniboine Park one way, and the other all the way to Point Douglas, and in the 3rd direction, up the Red towards St. Vital. Have a separated walkway and bike path, and you'd see the river walk usage multiply 1000x.
People already do. Better than Assiniboine in some ways, as you don't have to wait to cross Main and no need to zig zag through the Forks.
When it's not underwater, of course.
And people who use it like this probably do so well into November, and even through the winter if they do active transportation in the winter months. I know most people probably just want to stroll there in the summer but realistically it is in use 3/4 seasons.
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