- Home
- NEWS
- REGIONAL
- THIS WEEK'S PAPER
- BLOGS
- Multimedia
- OPINION
- A&E
- LISTS
- PEOPLE
- EVENTS
- Classifieds
- Subscribe
Welcome to Property Lines, Indy's source for neighborhood real estate news. Your host is Scott Olson, IBJ's real estate beat
reporter. Edited by Cory Schouten.
Sponsored by
ADVERTISEMENT
-
So the Mayor adds another non value added layer to having a vehicle towed? Whereby the City Government RECIEVES AN ILLEGAL KICKBACK FROM A LGOISTICS COMPANY THAT SUBS THE WORK TO LOCAL TOW COMPANIES? What is the service the City performs for receiving the "tribute"? This is RICO!!!!! What a corrupt and unnecessary layer. What a dirtbag Mayor and his cronies.
-
Owner occupied housing. Clear enough?
-
So people think I am paranoid. It's from experience in dealing with puds requested by developers who make major donations themselves to representatives, have nice fund raisers for those running for office and hide through pac's. then there are the public relation firms. You will note some pr comments below. You there Clyde Lee? My opinion. Commercial along 421, great. Multifamily housing, terrible idea that will change the town. Senior condos or zero lot line homes west, great. I suggest keeping all entries to commercial areas at 421. All entries to owner occupied on sycamore. Will keep the traffic on sycamore down some. Two other things. You can't trust what will be there in 10 years. Steve builds quality stuff, but areas change over time. Look at the changes at the wall mart center at 86th and 421 over the last 10 years. Look at the apartments and neighborhoods behind St Vincent's. Raintree properties WILL decrease in value if commercial and multifamily goes in near. It has already been happening around the bridges area. The houses that have been sold recently are way below market. Several deals not closed due to the Illinois construction and the whole unsurety of the bridges. It's pretty simple, Zionsville will approve the whole thing because the city council has been groomed over a LONG period of time for this. I might even suggest some are in their position as a result of this.
-
Esta, do you have a dog in this fight? You seem to really want to knock anyone against this project. No, I didn't move to Indiana for the architecture. I moved here for that red barn in the field. The horses and fields of corn. A place that is NOT overdeveloped. There are plenty of nearby places in Indianapolis that could be REDEVELOPED instead.
-
RKW - OK, we get it, you're paranoid. The question is, are you paranoid enough? Greg - Yes, Pittman(s) is (are) at it again. They are developers, they build things. It's what they do. So when you go to work tomorrow, Greg, you're at it again too. Cliff - Really? You moved to Indiana for its progressive architecture? That's like moving to England for the cuisine. Zionsvillain - The house you moved to was once a field or woods. I'm willing to bet folks were upset when that ground was plowed under and a house was built. But I guess now that you are in, everything should stop? "My house was OK, but the next one is sprawl." SE Guy - Please don't paint us with such a wide brush. Most reasonable Zionsville residents welcome planned, measured development.
ADVERTISEMENT
Back to TopCopyright © All Rights Reserved. Privacy Policy | Terms of Use.
Design, CMS, Hosting & Web Development :: ePublishing.
Additional Hosting & Delivery by
IBJ Conversations
37 Comments
Add Comment
Cory, is the City planning staff in love with this design, as proposed?
With that said.....it looks great!
Drive down meridian, you dont see every single square inch of facade facing the street as windows. You see brick, limestone, trees. I would much rather this be Brick than I think Windows - I have a feeling they wouldn't keep it clean all the time and too much chance for one to get broken.
OVerall, good design. Now, this is a long shot, I would love to see the IHOP be directly contiguos or pretty damn close to the ede of the CVS, if not follow along the same lines of brick and right up to the Street!
Hope it flys!
My only question is: Why does there have to be a drive-thru? That is the epitome of suburban-ness. Is it so much to ask that people get out of their cars in the adjacent parking lot and walk 20 feet?
Interesting that you suggest that we drive down Meridian rather than walk it. The reason Meridian holds zero pedestrian interest is for precisely the reasons you've outlined there.
Interesting that you suggest that we drive down Meridian rather than walk it. Part of the reason Meridian holds zero pedestrian interest is for precisely the reasons you've outlined there.
What is up with the Wild West Mainstreet theme? Man, that is one cheesy looking building.
And look, they've already bricked-up most of the windows. That saves some cheapskate developer the trouble 50 years from now.
It's too bad someone else can't develop this lot with a nice little 5 story mixed-use and just rent out the first floor to CVS. Oh well.
Despite the fact that the building is at the corner, I don't see how this design is superior to Walgreen's. At least the entrance to the Walgreen's can be identified from the corner. While these have yet to be adopted, in light of the multiple variances requested, one might think that the City would attempt to apply some of the key principles of urban design that are highlighted in the draft of Regional Center Design Guidelines that have been prepared and can be found at the following website http://www.indygov.org/eGov/City/DMD/Planning/Services/Current/ordinance.htm
under the heading Regional Center Ordinance.
Just a couple of the basic premises being to provide building entrances directly accessible from the sidewalk, to provide an entrance at the corner when the building is at an intersection, and to provide a minimum of forty percent low-reflectivity glass along the ground level street facades. This design fails miserably.
The attitude that we should feel fortunate to get any development befuddles me, most of all when it's retail. Retail develops because studies show that there are enough people with enough expendable income nearby to allow the company to make a profit. Retailers may make charitable contributions to the communities in which they operate, but they certainly don't do it by building stores in locations that they don't believe will be profitable. However, they will redesign their store to meet the standards of the community in which they wish to do business. Low standards = poor design. Enjoy!
Wake up. Take a trip to actually visit and observe a real, world-class city in person. Read. Learn about planning and design and the sociology of urban spaces. The middling acceptance of this contrived, cartoon-like design designed for cars, not people, is why Indy is not world class.
It's time for to get educated, take the long view, and stand up for Indy.
In 20-30 years, after all those surface lots inside the inner loop of the interstate fill up, then this site will be prime for a more-dense development. Until then, this is a perfectly good placeholder. Just like the Subway, Arby's, and White Castle that everyone loves to hate on South Street.
These aren't 100-year buildings. The former People's/Reliable/Osco on the site that is to be torn down dates to the late 80's or early 90's. The depreciation schedule for commercial real estate structures just happens to be 27 years...these single-user commercial buildings are 25-year buildings, tops.
Unfortunately, the biggest reason is that the sidewalk is narrow and right on the curb of a major artery. Even if there were interesting storefront windows, it's still too threatening to walk with busses whizzing by in the curb lane...three feet away.
That's another significant difference between this part of town and Downtown: residential-width sidewalks.
Take a look at the Meridian Street Plan (drafted by Eden Collaborative), at www.focusindy.com, which addresses this issue. Until the streetscape changes, this street won't attract many strolling pedestrians or interesting shops.
Its self absorbed people like BD that makes this City look like hot piles of ………
ITâ€S ALL ABOUT HIM. 24/7
The tone you label complaining is critiquing. There is a difference. There is nothing wrong with critiquing structures and desiring a more-excellent, well-designed city.
I think requirement # 3 would give the City staff the leverage to require a building entrance along the street. The Comprehensive Plan recommends using new urbanism development techniques. It can certainly be argued that not having an entrance from the sidewalk in an urban area in the most dense corridor radiating from the edge of downtown would not meet this requirement.
from the City's website: http://www.indygov.org/NR/rdonlyres/85E8B853-4EFC-403A-8602-1020B95EAFAA/0/ch735otherdistricts.pdf
Details of such a development, including use, signage, building
facade treatment, street furnishings and landscaping within the right-ofway,
landscape treatment on the site, development intensity and massing
of structure shall be so designed to:
1. Be in conformity with the Regional Center Plan for
Indianapolis, Marion County, Indiana, and the North Meridian
Street Corridor Development Plan, adopted by the Metropolitan
Development Commission's Resolution 82-CPS-R-4, April 15,
1982, 82-CPS-R-1, January 6, 1982; and
2. Create a superior land development plan, in conformity with
the Comprehensive Plan for Marion County, Indiana;
3. Create and maintain a desirable, efficient and economical
use of land with high functional and aesthetic value, attractiveness
and compatibility of land uses, within the Regional Center, the
North Meridian Corridor, applicable zoning district and within
adjacent uses;
4. Provide adequate access, parking and loading areas;
5. Provide adequate on-site vehicular circulation integrated with
traffic control and existing and planned public streets in the
vicinity;
6. Provide adequately for sanitation, drainage and public
utilities;
7. Allocate adequate sites for all uses proposed - the design,
character, grade, location, and orientation thereof to be
appropriate for the uses proposed, logically related to existing and
proposed topographical and other conditions;
8. Create and maintain clear sight lines which enhance the
views of parks and landmarks in the Regional Center and North
Meridian Street Corridor for pedestrians and motorists;
9. Be compatible in construction material, scale, color and
pattern with the existing environment.