Novare announces plans for Phoenix. Is Jacksonville next?

[thelakelander]

Earlier this year, Novare announced that it would be expanding into the Houston, Phoenix and Jacksonville markets by the end of 2007.  Novare's plans for Phoenix were recently announced.  Site clearing for this project is already underway.  Is Jacksonville still in the mix?

Downtown Phoenix: CityScape - www.downtownphxrising.org



CityScape will bring four 40 story buildings to a 3 block site over the next five years.  Novare will be responsible for the 1,200 unit residential component of this development, which has already attracted an A.J's Fine Foods and P.F. Changs to serve as two of the retail tenants.

[Jason]

WOW!!!!!

[midnightblackrx]

FINGERS CROSSED!!

[downtownparks]

has anyone contacted them?

[Ocklawaha]

"Putting On The Ritz in Phoenix"

"Up Town... Downtown... Where Rockerfellers walk with sticks...Putting on the Ritz..."

Anyone want to venture WHY? Why is Phoenix suddenly exploding with new development? What brought this development into the heart of downtown? Why is it so big when frankly, Phoenix doesn't have much of a Skyline and is a VERY HOT, dusty city in the bottom of a bowl shaped valley? Not that Phoenix is bad mind you, it's wonderful, even when the asphalt pavement is so hot it actually sticks to your shoes, snow can be but a short drive into the surrounding mountains. But heat, and snow didn't bring this on, and BRT or bus transit? Phoenix has had buses forever and John McCain is one of the most vocal anti-rail passenger ANYTHING since Conrad Hilton. But Phoenix citizens rammed the Valley Metro Light Rail right down the throat of McCain and much of the City government. CityScape is just one of the results in a 90 block TOD in the center city!  



The Yellow Lines, best as I can determine from the map, show the development within the context of LRT, further, this is only one development in a 90 block TOD!



Valley Metro Map, note the development sits between Jefferson and Washington at the corner of Central, right at the elbow of the whole system.



This is "cheap track" as far as this photo goes, the steel ties allow it to be laid directly on the pavement roadbed allowing it to go almost anywhere without utility disruption from having to dig a deep roadbed, Little Rock used this system to cross bridges such as, say, our own Acosta, or Main Street.  


Here the crew is checking the new wire in Phoenix, they could have made this median a green garden not unlike our own Main Street Carline, or St. Charles in New Orleans. But the only thing that grows in the "Valley of the Sun," is rocks.  



The cover going up on Central Station on Valley Metro Rail. This station is going to be close to the new Novare development either in location or in appearance.  

So we want to run out the old jumper cables and "ELECTRIFY JACKSONVILLE," do we? Someone please tell Peyton and Blaylock and Miller and the City Council that there IS a way...a Light RAILWAY... Spell it:



"Deep in the woods of North Florida, lives an old rotting Trolley...
they are our past...
and just maybe...
our future..."

...and those poor deluded fools at Jacksonville Transportation think this is going to happen because we have some pretty Gray buses, some white ones and a few potato-chip-trucks...Dumb...Dumb...Dumb...

Ocklawaha

[thelakelander]

Yes, the presence of light rail coming in was a major factor in the decision to move forward on the Novare City Scape project.  Ock, are you up for a challenge?

Can you find ONE example of a development this size being constructed in the United States because of bus rapid transit?

[Ocklawaha]

Hey Lake, that was easy man! I do have a photo of a susposed BRT TOD on the new line in Cleveland, Ohio. The report I have reads something like, "While it is not certain if the development would have happened without the BRT line, the positive effects on the community due to the new restaurant development...blah...blah...blah... "

Ready for this folks?

Puttin' on the Ritz in Cleveland and Jacksonville with BRT?

I now present to you the first doccumented BRT TOD!



Based on this, Navare should be willing to at least build a phone booth with a parking facility for us! BTW, did anyone else get a notice of another BRT meeting at the JTA Board Room? I did... how strange!

Ocklawaha

[02roadking]

I found another veiwpoint:

http://www.umich.edu/~econdev/brt/index.html

[thelakelander]

Interesting find...

However, this is an outright lie, if they are trying to claim that the development taking place in downtown Orlando is because of the LYMMO.

Orlando?s LYMMO system runs on arterial city streets, using special bus lanes that are separated from other traffic (GAO 2001: 19-20).  See Figure 3 (Levinson 2003: Volume 2).  Although the special lanes made its infrastructure costs substantially higher than some other BRTs that do not have special lanes, such as Los Angeles?s system, it was still a relative bargain compared  to Pittsburgh?s East Busway -- which required construction of a separate road, see Figure 4 (FTA 2004) â€" and even more of a bargain when compared to light rail lines (GAO 2001: appendices).  Since the inauguration of the LYMMO, approximately 5 million square feet of new office development and six new apartment complexes have been built in downtown Orlando (FTA 2004).

I lived down there before moving here and travel to Central Florida at least once a month to visit family.  Recent development in downtown Orlando falls in line with the growth boom of all of Florida's downtowns, not bus rapid transit.  To see the bus line for yourself click here:

http://www.metrojacksonville.com/content/view/428/116/

Real estate development along Cleveland?s Euclid Avenue received a major boost when plans were unveiled for a BRT line.  The presence of ?identifiable station structures? was cited as a key reason for this speculative development (GAO 2001: 31).

This one is a stretch also.  Euclid was downtown Cleveland's main retail corridor before the age of sprawl.  However, most of downtown's recent development has taken place in the Flats, Warehouse District, the waterfront and around new stadiums south of Euclid.  Strangely enough, these areas are all connected with three light rail lines that meet up at Union Terminal on....Euclid.  To claim that development is happening in that area is because of new clean bus stops, without mentioning the major investment in light rail that practically runs right next door is a great disservice.

Instead of tossing around numbers of general development in urban areas, it would be interesting to see BRT backers provide actual images and site plans of projects in these communities they claim came to exist because of BRT and not other factors.

[Ocklawaha]

Federal GAO Report Shows: It's BRT (and Heavy Rail) With the Big Cost Overruns, Not Light Rail!

Light Rail Progress  
Where are their facts and figures? What are their sources? GAO? What GAO report? BRT website? Which one? Detroit? NOT A DOUBT! UNIVERSITY OF WHERE? MICHIGAN? Last time I checked it was still the home to the enemy of anything Mass Transit, save for another combustion engine or set of tires. I will quote the numbers and tell you where they came from too... BRT = "Build Roads Today"

A frequent canard repeated by light rail opponents is the accusation that light rail transit (LRT) projects routinely experience severe cost overruns. Thus, they claim, projected costs of new projects are supposedly severely "underestimated". Wendell Cox, Thomas Rubin, and other rail opponents claim, for example, that "80%" or more of light rail projects experience serious cost overruns. The result is a potent scare tactic to alarm the public and turn voters away from light rail.

In mid-1999, the federal General Accounting Office, or GAO, published its own analysis of a number of major public transit projects. The GAO report, "Mass Transit â€" Status of New Starts Transit Projects With Full funding Grant Agreements" (GAO, Aug. 1999), particularly scrutinizes the issue of whether the projects had adhered to their budget and schedule guidelines. A review of the GAO's document indicates that, in contrast with the claims of Rubin and other zealous LRT opponents, the budget record of light rail projects has largely been admirable, particularly when compared with other alternative large public-transit undertakings such as "Bus Rapid Transit" (BRT) projects.

The document is available at http://www.gao.gov/archive/1999/. Just find document RC 99240 on the list.



Salt Lake City's new start light rail transit system was one of all 7 LRT projects which GAO found to be within budget.


Transit Projects Reviewed

Basically, the document reviews new transit projects in 14 cities. These can be categorized into Rail Rapid Transit (RRT), Regional Passenger Rail (RPR) (commonly called "commuter rail"), Bus Rapid Transit (BRT), and Light Rail Transit (LRT), as indicated in the table below.
All Projects Reviewed
Atlanta MARTA North Line ext.  RRT
San Francisco BART Airport ext.  RRT
Los Angeles LACMTA Red Line Hollywood ext.  RRT
San Juan, PR Tren Urbano  RRT
Maryland MARC Frederick est.  RPR
Boston MBTA S. Boston Piers Transitway  BRT
Houston Metro HOV ext.  BRT 
Denver RTD Southwest ext.  LRT
Hudson-Bergen NJ Transit  LRT
Portland Tri-Met Westside ext.  LRT
Sacramento RT South Line ext.  LRT
Salt Lake City new start  LRT
San Jose VTA Tasman Line  LRT
St. Louis Metrolink ext.  LRT
In all , 4 RRT, 1 RPR, 2 BRT, and 7 LRT projects were reviewed by the GAO. Of these, 100% â€" every single one â€" of the LRT projects came in at or below estimated budget.

Projects With Cost Overruns

The projects which were over budget were the two BRT projects, the single RPR project, and three of the RRT projects. In other words, both of the BRT projects reviewed were over budget. So much for the claims by Road Warriors like Cox and Rubin that BRT will save money and avoid budget overruns!

Incidentally, the one RRT project which did not experience an overrun was LA's Red Line extension.




LA's Red Line extension was the single rail rapid transit project which did not have a budget overrun, according to GAO.Even more amazing if you ever get to see it, spotlights, movie cameras, Hollywood glitz and glitter and you come out feeling like you just bathed in motion picture history.

Here is more detailed analysis on the six transit projects which were cited for budget overruns in the GAO report.

The following is a tabulation of the percentage overrun â€" i.e., the percentage by which the original cost was exceeded.

Projects With Cost Overruns
BRT
Boston MBTA S. Boston Piers Transitway  27.8%
Houston Metro HOV ext.  7.4%  
RRT Heavy Rail  
Atlanta MARTA North Line ext.  6.8%
San Francisco BART Airport ext.  27.1%
San Juan, PR Tren Urbano  24.6%  
Commuter Rail
Maryland MARC Frederick ext.  2.0%  
Regarding these projects with overruns, we note the following:

• A BRT project â€" Boston's South Boston Piers Transitway â€" racked up the highest single percentage cost overrun.

• A rail transit project â€" Maryland's MARC regional passenger rail ("commuter rail") Frederick ext. â€" racked up the lowest percentage cost overrun (of those projects which had overruns).

• The percentage cost overrun of both the Houston BRT (HOV) project and the Atlanta RRT project were approximately in the same ballpark of around 7%.

In all fairness, it should be noted that Houston Metro's HOV project cost and schedule delay problems apparently stemmed from delay brought on by contractor disputes with the agency, which produced a 2-year delay in implementation. Delay costs money.

However, the problems facing the Boston BRT project were different, and are worth noting in detail in view of the intensive promotion of BRT by the Federal Transit Administration and various elements within the highway industry. The Boston plan is much closer to what might be considered "high-level" BRT, including fancy new multi-articulated vehicles. According to the GAO, some reasons for actual and potential cost overruns are enumerated as follows:


Rendering of Boston's South Piers Transitway BRT project, which topped GAO's list of projects with budget overruns, recording the highest budget overrun of any of the projects reviewed.


• Design problems: "...the original baseline cost estimate was based on the project's early design, which has since required modification." (As we've previously observed, BRT promoters habitually lowball design and cost aspects.)

• Utilities relocation problems: "... complications with the design for relocating utilities, and differing site conditions." (Downplaying or ignoring utilities relocation issues for BRT is one of the more common practices in the lowballing process.)

• Vehicle facility costs: "... whether to build a new vehicle maintenance facility or expand an existing one ..." (As we have represtedly noted, BRT enthusiasts typically lowball costs by claiming that existing facilities can be used and new ones are unnecessary)

• Rolling stock cost overruns: "a higher-than-anticipated unit cost for the vehicles..." (Remember: these are largely newly designed, somewhat experimental, and fairly untested vehicles with rather complex mechanical features.)

The GAO report also repeatedly cites land acquisition costs which are exceeding estimates. Again, this suggests the possibility that BRT's actual spatial requirements both for ROW and stations were underestimated in the familiar cost-lowballing process that characterizes the work of many BRT promoters and their consultants.

All told, this information constitutes a tremendous refutation of the widespread "cost overrun" claims about LRT (and the supposed virtues of BRT) promulgated by many anti-rail zealots.
Moral of the story: "Rubber-tire rapid transit" has about the same propensity of cost overruns as major rail transit projects. If you're looking for a "magic bullet" to eliminate cost overruns, BRT ain't it.

Thanks to Light Rail Now for the response to this question.

Ocklawaha

[Ocklawaha]

Question from Alex D. Beseris, Senior Planner, Carter Burgess:How successful are TODs becoming with Bus Rapid Transit, or is it too soon to know? Do you know of any case studies or good examples of TODs around BRT stations? Thank you.  

Answer from author Ellen Greenberg:

The American Public Transit Association (APTA) website describes Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) as follows: "Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) combines the quality of rail transit and the flexibility of buses. It can operate on exclusive transitways, HOV lanes, expressways, or ordinary streets. A BRT system combines intelligent transportation systems technology, priority for transit, rapid and convenient fare collection, and integration with land-use policy in order to substantially upgrade bus system performance." The question of whether bus rapid transit is supportive of TOD (and vice versa) is a good one, as an increasing number of BRT systems are in operation and development. My thanks to Jeffrey Tumlin of Nelson\Nygaard Consulting Associates for help with the response to this question.

While many BRT services are recently implemented or still in development, a few have enough of a track record to demonstrate positive land-use impacts. The most notable North American examples are in Pittsburgh and Ottawa, where real estate and development activity have been associated with BRT stations. Both are described in TCRP Report 90, Bus Rapid Transit â€" Volume 1: Case Studies in Bus Rapid Transit. Consistent with the recommendations included in my Zoning Practice article, that report, which draws on international experience in 26 cities, concludes that, "Any major BRT investment should be reinforced by transit-supportive land-development and parking policies. BRT should be an integral part of land use, transportation, economic development, and master-planning efforts."

Even more recently, TCRP Report 102, Transit-Oriented Development in the United States: Experiences, Challenges, and Prospects, synthesizes and analyzes the results of an extensive survey on TOD activity.  

The 145 agencies responding to the survey identified TOD projects and the type of associated transit service, with just under eight percent identified as associated with bus service of any kind.  

The report’s Los Angeles area case study includes a brief discussion of TOD and BRT, and reports that in Los Angeles no TOD projects had broken ground or were in the planning stages as of the time the survey was completed.

Ocklawaha's Conclusion? IF YOU HAVE READ BOTH POSTS... What sort of "deal" is FDOT, JTA and WASHINGTON, trying to pass off on Jacksonville? 8% Development? Good grief, Woodward, Stilwell and Poteau, Oklahoma exceed that and they don't have any buses at all! City Council please check out my facts and figures, don't let JTA take us for a ride... Let's kill the BRT plan until we can build a concept of LRT, COMMUTER RAIL, SKYWAY and REAL HISTORIC TROLLEYS, then and only then do we add BRT to extend the reach of the system into area more suited to 40-75 passenger loads in the distant suburbs rather then the 200-300 passenger loads that only RAIL could originate and terminate in downtown. NO TO BRT DOWNTOWN and NO TO BRT as a TOD TOOL... 8% indeed, my how impressive...


Ocklawaha

[Brick]

Does anyone know what site they are considering?

[Jason]

They haven't announced anything yet.

[reednavy]

Being from near Nashville, I can go ahead and tell you from personal witnessing, Novare builds a great product. I went to the open house of the Viridian, and it's a perfect fit, even for the base being 6 inches away from the L&C Tower! Encore is another excellent product. Viridian is unique, in it has a roof top pool, some 380 feet above the ground! and what a fantastic sweeping view. When they come here, you guys can expect nothing but the best for first time buyers. Their tower are always clad in glass and concrete/stone. Get ready for a residential revolution.

[fsujax]

Back to the Novare discussion.  I was in Nashville several weeks ago and took a ton of pictures of the Downtown, including the Novare tower that was mentioned above.  It is amazing it is built right up to another building next to it. I would insert the picture, but I do not know how. Let's hope that Novare will still seriously consider Jacksonville.  I e-mailed them several months ago about building in Jacksonville.  I never heard anything back from them, though.