Five Points Village Plans Cause Concern

[sheclown]

I was at the HPC meeting.

I wanted to die.

I don't understand the fixation on micro-details and then having to read those details into the minutes.

God save us from hours of reading into the minutes things that adults ought to be able to read on their own.

[cline]

Lake, I think your version is a good compromise, although I could see those who are complaining about Forbes not going with it since it has outdoor seating on corner of Forbes and Margaret. 

"a) Any restaurant and/or sidewalk seating should be limited to the units from the middle of the building to the Post Street end."

[thelakelander]

I think Im in line with RAP and PeeJayEss on this one.  Street fronting retail development is better. 

How do you pay for the construction of the new structure?  Are you suggesting the developer is fully responsible for it, even though there is no logical financial reason for them to do so? 

If so, what stops the developer from simply throwing their hands up, cleaning up the existing site, painting the existing building and moving on without doing anything else? 

[thelakelander]

Lake, I think your version is a good compromise, although I could see those who are complaining about Forbes not going with it since it has outdoor seating on corner of Forbes and Margaret. 

"a) Any restaurant and/or sidewalk seating should be limited to the units from the middle of the building to the Post Street end."

I wonder if this would change, given the location of the seating?  The noise impact of outdoor seating for residences on Forbes would be significantly different if seating were located on Maragaret Street instead of near the side rear of the property, closer to residential uses.

[April]

Only 3 storefronts currently occupy 5 Points Village that I'm aware of now.  Also I doubt seriously that the  "market" at the Park end has any plans to start serving food to leverage outdoor seating...  Which begs the question; "how long term are the leases?".  There's been alot of questions like this that seems to have been taken at face value.  At the end of the day there's an opportunity here to change a parcel that has been questionable for sometime and bring it up to the standard this community has fought hard to establish...   

         

[thelakelander]

Only 3 storefronts currently occupy 5 Points Village that I'm aware of now.  Also I doubt seriously that the  "market" at the Park end has any plans to start serving food to leverage outdoor seating...  Which begs the question; "how long term are the leases?".  There's been alot of questions like this that seems to have been taken at face value.  At the end of the day there's an opportunity here to change a parcel that has been questionable for sometime and bring it up to the standard this community has fought hard to establish...

I absolutely agree.  I just don't think a line should be instantly drawn in the sand that requires something that may not make financial sense at this point.  Such a position could result in the opportunity being completely lost and the property remaining in its current state.

[peestandingup]

If I were them, I'd first be worrying about why the strip in Five Points itself is only half occupied. Have any of them taken a walk through there lately?? LOTS of vacant storefronts. Especially for a "thriving" urban area.

[ben says]

If I were them, I'd first be worrying about why the strip in Five Points itself is only half occupied. Have any of them taken a walk through there lately?? LOTS of vacant storefronts. Especially for a "thriving" urban area.

I think there are many reasons for the vacancies. One is the old Fuel..that place is huge and is sort of the beacon of 5 Points shops...been vacant for years. Someone told me why it's vacant awhile back but I've since forgotten. Something along the lines of lazy owner or the owner doesn't want to invest in the necessary repairs. Could be wrong there--so don't quote me on it.

The other issue is the astronomical prices. I've looked at purchasing some of these storefronts and the price they are asking dictates the "what are you kidding me?" response...I believe the jewelry store is for sale for over 500k.

I think there is still a lot of uncertainty about 5 Points, especially with the older generations. I've talked to many above-50 year olds who still think 5 Points is seedy and where kids go to get dope, drunk, or get shot (my friend was shot right in front of the shoe store about 8 years ago).

[thelakelander]

And where is there any documentation that the addition of a building along margaret street would 'kill' the original tenants?

Where is there a specialty strip retail center with limited visibility and no anchor space that's fully leased in town?

Does anyone think that the starbucks and UPS are 'killing' the Publix?

Put the UPS on Goodwin Street directly behind Publix, without illuminated signage, midblock between Riverside Avenue and Oak Street and let me know how it fares. I'm willing to bet if they had their choice of spaces to lease, that specific location wouldn't come near the top.

With that said, there are a few major differences here.  Publix is a 28,000 sf anchor that has visibility along the most traveled roadway accessing that site, which is Riverside Avenue.   In addition, here we're talking about less than 70' of space between existing and proposed buildings.  With the Publix example, you have nearly 170' between them at Sushi Cafe and 300' between the grocery store and the Margaret strip. These are significant differences.

Has anyone actually spoken to Peter about this?

I haven't personally but you can read their comments on the proposed plan here:

But Diebenow said that scenario, and other plans RAP has presented are simply not feasible.

“As far as the plans they’ve asked us to consider, they’ve asked us to tear it down and move it forward â€" we just can’t do that,” Diebenow said. “We have tenants right now with leases. It’s not possible to buy them out of leases and tear it down and move it forward. And tearing down a portion of the building and reconfiguring it? Unfortunately that won’t work either â€" we have gone out to the market to see if tenants would rent space with a building in front of it, it’s just not marketable.

This is a retail center with small, individual users and as a result they all want visibility, frontage and signage. Putting one building in front the other would render the back building unusable.”

full article: http://residentnews.net/2012/11/05/5-points-village-rezoning-application-draws-ire/

[thelakelander]

If I were them, I'd first be worrying about why the strip in Five Points itself is only half occupied. Have any of them taken a walk through there lately?? LOTS of vacant storefronts. Especially for a "thriving" urban area.

Or they could look down the street at Riverside and Margaret and see fully leased retail centers.  However, in this particular case, it's not like they are developing a site from scratch.  They are simply renovating the fire damaged center they already own.

[ben says]

ah.  so they are already on record and Steve is representing them.

Perhaps Steve is compiling clients for a class action against RAP.

That would be too bad for RAP, I think. They have such a positive role that they could be playing.

Design standards like this one are something I agree with, as a regular customer of the maytag laundry there (they do a wonderful wash and fold, and I really like the family) and a former customer of MetroPOS, i would assume that both businesses are destinations and not as dependent on passing vehicular traffic for visibility.

People generally find MetroPOS online, and there isnt another coin operated laundry until you get to king street.

And I cant imagine that the smoke shop will lose a single customer.

Best. Coin. Operated. Laundry. Ever.

And yeah, people love the Tropical. Probably always will!

Not trying to hijack the thread, but it's pretty damn related....whats up with the old Pizza Palace?

[thelakelander]

ah.  so they are already on record and Steve is representing them.

Perhaps Steve is compiling clients for a class action against RAP.

That would be too bad for RAP, I think. They have such a positive role that they could be playing.

Design standards like this one are something I agree with, as a regular customer of the maytag laundry there (they do a wonderful wash and fold, and I really like the family) and a former customer of MetroPOS, i would assume that both businesses are destinations and not as dependent on passing vehicular traffic for visibility.

People generally find MetroPOS online, and there isnt another coin operated laundry until you get to king street.

And I cant imagine that the smoke shop will lose a single customer.

But you can imagine that a retail building with visibility would be more valuable to the owner than one without visibility.

[strider]

Here's the issue with setting the standards too high.  They can still appeal to city council and win if HPC makes it too difficult or too costly.  There is also a clause or two in the related ordinances that allow for financial hardship, meaning that there are limits to what you can make the owner spend to accomplish what you want compared to what he wants to do or you would have to do without the historic issues.  The original proposal seems like it was reasonable, even if not to the current urban way of thinking.  What RAP wants, big surprise, is not reasonable.  You could make an argument that Lake's suggestion is a decent compromise, but then I can easily see a justification that the owner need not compromise and just get city council to back their play.  The sad truth is the design of this plaza may make a difference to the area some decade, but certainly not within the lives of most of us here on this forum.  And by then, it will be financial feasible to rebuild it to the latest urban specs.  Heck, then they will want to.   Lots has to happen before that though.

We are still struggling to recover from an economic disaster that effected 95% of us and badly hurt 20 to 25% of us.  Perhaps it is time to recognize that a not perfect window can be replaced later on and that the plaza design hasn't hurt the community for the last 25 years so it wont kill us during the next 20.  Yes, perhaps we need to start moving back to a true urban way of life, but as it took 60 to 70 years to get this car dependent, what makes anyone think it won't take at least as long to get back to were we were ( transit/ urban design wise) in 1915?

[urbanlibertarian]

Let's not let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

[fsujax]

I know this is a little off topic, but does anyone know what happend to the 7-11 or whatever it was that was planned for the Hardees/Pizza Palace located across the street?