[St. John's] The Official Project Thread

[J_Murphy]

What is the estimated completion date of Route 3 (team gushue highway) ?

edit: oops, meant to post this in the transport development thread.

[bellerophon]

A few shots of downtown I took a few weeks ago...


Shot at 2012-08-28


Shot at 2012-08-28


Shot at 2012-08-28

[niccanning]

Interesting view points!

[SignalHillHiker]

Great pictures, Bellerophon. Love saying your username as well, ha!

August 29, 2012





Ooh, what's this? A lane on the other side? I bet it has a beautiful view!



Nevermind...



And there's a new addition growing on one of the buildings next door:

[statbass]

Great pictures everyone! It's really nice to see the thread growing and more people taking interest in development in the city. Great work and keep the pics coming, I look forward to logging in every day and checking them out... greatly appreciated.

[bellerophon]

I really like where the downtown skyline is going. With 351, Fortis, Deacon and possibly the Hilton, the west end of downtown is starting to shape as the commercial centre of downtown, while the east side (George and Water Street) is home to colorful houses and unique stores and shops. With the TD renovations and the Fortis retrofitting, I think that side will look pretty good. And plus with the renovations of the old telephone building, a major eye sore of downtown will finally be gone. I really think that the west end of downtown needs to be densified with more than just office building though. Adding a few shopping attractions and fixing up some aging buildings would be nice.

[Copes]

Originally Posted by bellerophon

I really like where the downtown skyline is going. With 351, Fortis, Deacon and possibly the Hilton, the west end of downtown is starting to shape as the commercial centre of downtown, while the east side (George and Water Street) is home to colorful houses and unique stores and shops. With the TD renovations and the Fortis retrofitting, I think that side will look pretty good. And plus with the renovations of the old telephone building, a major eye sore of downtown will finally be gone. I really think that the west end of downtown needs to be densified with more than just office building though. Adding a few shopping attractions and fixing up some aging buildings would be nice.

I think that once there are tenants in the office buildings, and tourists at the hotels, the west end will be a prime spot for cafes and restaurants like we see on Water street. In my mind, the office buildings are the first step, and from them will come all kinds of great things for the west side. My fingers are certainly crossed.

[jeddy1989]

A little bit of light hearted reading about the possible alternative motive for DT development to brighten your day:

Is St. John’s preparing to welcome superheroes? Possibly.

Is there a clandestine effort to recruit superheroes in St. John's?

Quite possibly, and the clues are littered around the downtown area. For instance, there's a covered dish-type object on the top of the Fortis building.

While the official explanation is that it's a standard communications device, under that cover could very well be a high-powered signalling spotlight. Could the equipment be used to summon some caped vigilante?

At 12 storeys, the Fortis Building stands alone, towering above the surrounding beautiful structures that, unfortunately, don't have the stature required for superhero activity.
Looking to the future, St. John’s council appears to have realized a shortfall in their plan to encourage superhero activity in the city.

The question must be asked. Are these proposed tall office tower and hotel buildings being built downtown for business growth, or to encourage web-slinging superheroes?
...

Are the under-construction buildings an attempt to get a Spiderman-type crime-fighter to move to the city, or perhaps an effort to give Superman something tall to jump over in a single leap?

The possibility of Superman visiting our fair city isn't so outrageous.

Unlike many urban centres, St. John's still has phone booths on downtown streets.

They're made of clear plastic and don't have doors, but with Superman's super-speed, changing in them shouldn't be a problem.

...

...

http://www.thetelegram.com/Arts---Life/2...aring-to-welcome-superheroes-Possibly./1

[SignalHillHiker]

Awesome.

*****

With suggestions from other forumers, I used Windows Live Gallery to properly stitch together a panorama...

I had to reduce the size from 16,000x wide to "just" 12,500x in order to keep it under the 10MB limit for Imgur. And Imgur further reduced the size, but here it is:

[Ayreonaut]

Seems to have worked well, nice job.

FWIW, this is an example I have with that program. From Victoria this summer. Notice the dark vertical lines throughout the image where the photos were stitched. Of course, this is otherwise unedited and I could fix that myself, but still.

[SignalHillHiker]

Great shot(s), though!

August 29, 2012 - St. John's, N.L.

A few more panoramas taken today:

[Ayreonaut]

Awesome views. It was certainly a beautiful day to be out and about. I'd have gone on a walkabout, but I had to stick close to home to pick up my dog from the groomer. Hopefully tomorrow's as nice, then I'll get out and take some shots.

[SignalHillHiker]

It was beautiful but the distance was so blue it's hard to correct the colour.

I'm having WAY too much fun with this.

Here's most of the major buildings in the skyline (click for full size):

[Ayreonaut]

There was a break in the tennis, so I decided to walk over to the Battery. Once there, I decided I might as well go around and up the hill. Took about 130 photos or so, but not many of the city (with the sun behind it, it was rather washed out). I might go again in the morning for some shots of downtown.

[MrChills]

Originally Posted by SignalHillHiker

Great pictures, Bellerophon. Love saying your username as well, ha!

August 29, 2012

Looking at Atlantic Place from this view made me wonder if there is any plan to do future renovations to this building?

I guess there is nothing you could do with that box to make it beautiful, but if they continued up to the top with the large windows and brick in between that they did for the first couple of floors it would be a massive improvement.

To give them credit though the inside has been nicely done. My father worked there when I was a kid, and I remember going there in the 80's and early 90's and the food court was probably the sketchiest public place in the city.

[Ayreonaut]

I was actually at Atlantic Place today, enjoying the patio for the first time since before I officially moved here in 2010. It was really nice. I noticed Fog City's gone though, which was surprising. Certainly not the best burgers around, but the best quick ones in the inner city. I thought there was supposed to be a gourmet burger place opening up downtown? Am I missing it, or did that not happen?

[MrChills]

^ I was home for a trip a few weeks ago and was also surprised to see that they were gone, they seemed busy any time I went there - perhaps the rent versus the hours where it's actually busy didn't add up, as I imagine they relied 90% on what they received at lunch hours. Not many businesses seem to survive there other than the low overhead that places like Starbucks and Booster Juice has.

[SignalHillHiker]

August 29, 2012 - St. John's, N.L.

I returned to Signal Hill last night to try a few night-time panoramas. It went much better this time with an improvised tripod, ha! Click on any image for the largest size available.

[statbass]

Originally Posted by MrChills

^ I was home for a trip a few weeks ago and was also surprised to see that they were gone, they seemed busy any time I went there - perhaps the rent versus the hours where it's actually busy didn't add up, as I imagine they relied 90% on what they received at lunch hours. Not many businesses seem to survive there other than the low overhead that places like Starbucks and Booster Juice has.

^^^^ I agree - I think the restaurants at Atlantic Place have to rely heavily on lunchtime sales Mon-Fri and this tends to limit sales. However, Cora's opened up at AP a few years back and it seems to be doing well. Maybe their whole 'early breakfast to lunch' business model fits better at AP. A new sushi place just opened up, hopefully they make a good go of it.

Ayreonaut - The gourmet burger place you're thinking of is Relish Burger. The restaurant opened up at the end of July and is located on Waldegrave St. just down from the intersection of New Gower and Barter's Hill (Delta intersection). My wife and I went there a couple weeks back and really enjoyed it. You pay on average about $18.00 (tax incl) for a burger, fries, and drink - but the burger was delicious!

[Copes]

Originally Posted by Ayreonaut

I was actually at Atlantic Place today, enjoying the patio for the first time since before I officially moved here in 2010. It was really nice. I noticed Fog City's gone though, which was surprising. Certainly not the best burgers around, but the best quick ones in the inner city. I thought there was supposed to be a gourmet burger place opening up downtown? Am I missing it, or did that not happen?

Relish has opened. Its on the corner of George Street West and Waldergrade Street. Right across from the Convention Centre and Ultramar.

The burgers are decent, but its definitely not fast (I waited about 15 minutes) and I don't know if what you're given justifies the price (its good, but its not $20 good).