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Posts Tagged ‘urban design’...
Thursday, March 28th, 2013
![88 Elm Street. 13 floors of empty waiting for you to do something with it. [PHOTO: City of Rochester]](http://www.rochestersubway.com/images/photos/filling-in-88-elm-01.jpg)
The following is a guest post submitted by Matthew Denker.
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As some of you may or may not know, the city has finally released a Request for Proposals (RFP) on 88 Elm Street  . Up front, here’s a link to the RFP , in case you run a development company, or if you’re Larry Glazer and you’re looking for another project to work on.
In any event, here’s some background on 88 Elm St. Somehow, despite being built sometime in the 60s, no one is exactly sure when 88 Elm St. was constructed, or where, exactly, it came from. You’d think that’d be impossible in this day and age, but it’s not. In 1998, the city decided it had enough of the owners of the property not paying their taxes and they took it. All well and good, except now it’s been empty for 15 years. It’s emptier than you might think. The city spent more than a million dollars on an asbestos abatement and a new roof. The building has no electrical system, no sprinkler system, no HVAC, no plumbing. It is a completely bare 13 story tower. That’s a bit of a rarity, and it could be yours for only $360,000. Apparently that’s the market rate for the 13-story husk of a building…
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Thursday, March 28th, 2013
Tags: 88 Elm Street, adaptive reuse, development, downtown, downtown Rochester, Elm Street, Filling In, Matthew Denker, Midtown Plaza, Rochester, Rochester NY, urban design
Posted in Opinion, Reader Submitted Stories, Urban Development | 13 Comments »
Sunday, March 17th, 2013
Two important cases will go before the Zoning Board this Thursday: the ongoing saga of one historic church on Main Street, and design concerns regarding the future College Town. Salvation for the church, as well as the promise of a pedestrian-friendly College Town, may hang in the balance.
First, if you’ve been following the story of the little white church at 660 W. Main Street, owner Marvin Maye will make one more appeal to challenge the building’s status as a Designated Building of Historic Value. If he succeeds, he could have a clear path forward to demolish the 140-something-year-old church.* And in its place would go a Dollar General store…
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Sunday, March 17th, 2013
Tags: 660 W. Main Street, Celebration Drive, College Town, Collegetown, demolition, design standards, Designated Building of Historic Value, development, development plans, Elmwood Ave, Marvin Maye, Mount Hope, Rochester, Rochester NY, Stacie Colaprete, street design, Susan B. Anthony Neighborhood, University of Rochester, UofR, urban design, Westminster Presbyterian Church, zoning, Zoning Board of Appeals (ZBA), zoning code
Posted in Opinion, Rochester News, Urban Development | 30 Comments »
Friday, March 15th, 2013
The following is a guest post submitted by Matthew Denker.
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One of the best places to put additional density is near public parks. Why you ask? Well, that’s an excellent question. Not only do parks double as excellent backyards that homeowners don’t need to mow, but they provide excellent views (that will never go away), and density around parks makes the parks themselves more attractive to passers-by.
All of this translates to adding housing around pre-existing parks. This should be a priority for the city. While I am hoping to tackle a master plan for Brown Square Park (by Frederick Law Olmsted, no less!), let’s start out with something a little smaller…
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Friday, March 15th, 2013
Tags: Avon Place, development, Filling In, Fountain Street, infill development, Matthew Denker, Otto Henderberg Square Park, Rochester, Rochester NY, Swillburg, urban design
Posted in Opinion, Reader Submitted Stories, Urban Development | 27 Comments »
Monday, March 11th, 2013
![Jim Mayer and his wife Irene invite us into their home at Erie Harbor Apartments. [PHOTO: RochesterSubway.com]](http://www.rochestersubway.com/images/photos/erie-harbor-apartments-01.jpg)
“The units at Erie Harbor are very poorly designed and overpriced… The ground floor units don’t even have a view of the river – it is blocked by a berm… Shoddy construction… The stairs creak… Tacky… Ugliest building in Rochester…” These are all comments you may have heard about the Erie Harbor Apartments which were officially opened last fall .
When comments like these were left under a recent post on RochesterSubway.com, Jim Mayer didn’t take it sitting down. He contacted me and invited me to visit his home. He and his wife Irene sold their home in Brighton and now live at Erie Harbor. I admit, after nearly a three hour visit, I left feeling a bit jealous at just how much this couple is loving life in their new digs…
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Monday, March 11th, 2013
Tags: Abundance Cooperative Market, Brighton, downtown Rochester, Erie Harbor Apartments, Genesee River, Genesee Riverway Trail, Genesee Rowing Club, Irene Mayer, Jim Mayer, Lofts at Village Gate, Mise en Place, Rochester, Rochester NY, Rochester Public Market, South Wedge, The Hamilton, University of Rochester, urban design, urban living
Posted in Interviews, Rochester News, Urban Development | 40 Comments »
Wednesday, February 13th, 2013
![Dehumanizing architecture like this has been popping up all over Rochester for decades. [IMAGE: RochesterSubway.com]](http://www.rochestersubway.com/images/photos/fortified-rochester.jpg)
The following is a guest post submitted by Joel Helfrich.
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You do not have to be a designer to see that Rochester has a problem—well, a number of problems, actually. That we continue to make the same mistakes, however, regarding design of our built environment, is perhaps one of the most egregious. This column highlights some of the worst offenders in Rochester—some of which are still being built…
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Wednesday, February 13th, 2013
Tags: architecture, City of Quartz: Excavating the Future in Los Angeles, East Avenue Wegmans, EchoTone Music, Excellus Blue Cross Blue Shield, James PB Duffy School No. 12, Joel Helfrich, McDonald's, Mike Davis, Postler & Jaeckle, Rochester Riverside Convention Center, South Avenue, South Wedge, urban design, Wegman's
Posted in Opinion, Reader Submitted Stories, Rochester Images, Urban Development | 67 Comments »
Wednesday, February 6th, 2013
![Our second installment of 'Filling In' looks at developing the parking lots between Capron Lofts and Geva Theater. [IMAGE: Google Streetview]](http://www.rochestersubway.com/images/photos/filling-in-capron-street-01.jpg)
The following is a guest post submitted by Matthew Denker.
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Welcome back! Last week we looked at a block that almost had it all. This week, let’s see what we can do on a much larger scale with a block that needs a little more work. A roughly 600’x600’ square mega block at the southern entrance to downtown. There are a few good things going on here; Geva Theater , Capron Lofts , Plan Architects . And, a few not so good; a sweeping highway off-ramp, a GIANT parking lot across the street from TWO garages, and random weedy surface lots…
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Wednesday, February 6th, 2013
Tags: Capron Street, Clinton Ave, Clinton Avenue, development, downtown, downtown Rochester, Filling In, Geva Theater, infill development, Matthew Denker, Merkel Donohue, Rochester, Rochester NY, St. Mary's Place, urban design
Posted in Reader Submitted Stories, Rochester Images, Urban Development | 17 Comments »
Tuesday, January 29th, 2013
![Aerial view of the Main Street bridge. 1929. [IMAGE: Rochester Municipal Archives]](http://www.rochestersubway.com/images/photos/aerial-main-street-bridge-rochester-1929.jpg)
The following is a guest post submitted by Matthew Denker.
Submit your story today.
Welcome to the first post in what will be an ongoing series called Filling In. One of the key elements of any great city is a tightly knit urban fabric. Whether you’re in New York City, San Francisco, or our own beloved Rochester, building an appealing city scape at a human, walkable scale promotes health, wealth, and wisdom. We’ve also learned that parks next to parks next to barren windswept plazas don’t put butts in seats, as they say. With that in mind, Filling In aims to explore vacant or underutilized pieces of Rochester in an effort to rebuild or strengthen our built environment. The aerial photo above was taken in 1929, when downtown was dense and energetic. And here is a reminder of what we’re up against…
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Tuesday, January 29th, 2013
Tags: development, downtown, downtown Rochester, Exchange Boulevard, Exchange Street, Exhange, Filling In, infill development, Matthew Denker, Rochester, Rochester NY, urban design
Posted in Reader Submitted Stories, Rochester Images, Urban Development | 34 Comments »
Monday, December 17th, 2012
![Cyclist on the sidewalk across the street from the Midtown development, Rochester, NY. [PHOTO: Rick U, RocPX.com]](http://www.rochestersubway.com/images/photos/rochester-midtown-cyclist.jpg)
I want to share with you an opinion piece from RustWire.com last week. The article was reposted on BuffaloRising.com and it’s now made its way down I-90 to RochesterSubway.com. Angie Schmitt begins by blasting attempts to market cities to young people. Angie cites an example from Columbus, Ohio where leaders spent a $30,000 grant to hire a so-called “Gen Y” expert to tell them how they could retain and attract the widely-coveted demographic. “Why didn’t they just ask the young people that live there what they want, and maybe put the $30,000 toward that?” she asks…
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Monday, December 17th, 2012
Tags: Angie Schmitt, Boston, BuffaloRising.com, Cleveland, Columbus OH, Global Cleveland Initiative, livibility, New York City, RustWire.com, San Francisco, suburbanization, urban design, urban revitalization
Posted in Opinion, Transit + Infrastructure, Urban Development | 17 Comments »
Monday, April 25th, 2011
While visiting Seattle a few years ago something occurred to me. Here I was on the other side of the country in a city I had never been to before in my life, and I was navigating their bus system like seasoned Seattleite. There were no fancy digital real-time signs, I had no smart phone, no GPS anything… I didn’t even have a printed schedule. I didn’t need any of those things because I had this…
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Monday, April 25th, 2011
Tags: bus routes, bus-stop, design, George Salomon, graphic design, makeover, Massimo Vignelli, New York City Subway, New York City Transit Authority (NYCTA), Regional Transit Service (RTS), Rochester, Rochester Genesee Regional Transportation Authority (RGRTA), Rochester NY, Seattle, urban design
Posted in Opinion, Rochester News, Transit + Infrastructure | 39 Comments »
Saturday, May 16th, 2009
On Monday evening, June 8, 2009, the Rochester Regional Community Design Center  will go before Rochester’s City Planning Commission and appeal the decision to allow a Fastrac gas station to be built on Main Street next to the Main/University Inner Loop on-ramp. Roger Brown, Creative Consultant at RRCDC explains, “Though we don’t agree with the Zoning Board’s decision to allow a gas station at that site … much of our case will be about the urban design of the building and how it needs to be designed according to the Center City Design Standards for Main Street.”
I’ll talk more about those “urban design standards” and how you can help. But first, there’s a virus spreading across America…
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Saturday, May 16th, 2009
Tags: architecture, Center City, city, city planning, design, design standards, downtown Rochester, Exxon Mobil, eyesore, fast food restaurant, franchise, gas station, infrastructure, Main Street, McDonald's, mixed-use, Monroe Avenue, Monroe County, multi-use construction, ordinance, Pittsford, Rochester Regional Community Design Center, Roger Brown, RRCDC, sidewalks, suburbs, sustainability, urban design, urban planning, urban renewal, Walmart, Webster, zoning
Posted in Rochester News, Urban Development | 2 Comments »
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