We'll get back to our D&C Conversation shortly, but let's take a break for a minute to discuss an interesting development in the Renaissance Square saga. One of our local bloggers, the Moderate Urban Champion, has a smart post on recent developments there.
The short story is that Neil Bauman, father of local Internet king eBaum, owns some of the property that was to become Ren Square. He's frustrated at the lack of progress, and has proposed that the theater on the site be replaced with residential towers. The Urban Champ thinks this is a good idea.
I agree with the Urban Champ: forget about the theater. Rochester could always use another venue, but Ren Square was the CatDog of urban development projects. The notion that a bus station by day could become a high-end theater district by night left potential retailers scratching their heads. Were they supposed to open combination newsstand/bistros?
Bauman's plan to build housing adjacent to the city's main transportation hub, right next to the urban campus of the local community college, seems like a no-brainer. It's something a real-estate developer, not a politician, would propose.
The Ren Square theater was a political sop to suburbanites who aren't going to ride buses or attend the center-city MCC campus. It's lingered far too long, and I hope Bauman's plan deals it a death blow.
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The problem from the very beginning has always been that this whole escapade has lacked any true identity or self-stated purpose. Yes, Cat-Dog seems like a good analogy. One plan, way back there, was to make the local bus garage, the Greyhound station and the Amtrack stations all one thing, up where the Amtrack station was. I thought this was a good idea, but then someone decided it needed to be downtown and it needed a theatre. . . WTF?
But I have to say: the need for a theatre downtown is genuine. The Aud is just too small to put on a good, Broadway style production and there is a need to get people out of the frickin' suburbs and into the city. I wish this part wouldn't just get shoved off the table like it is.
I think that the real service nBaum is doing for Rochester is confusing the subject again. Maybe people will finally start really turning off of this project and we can just put a nail in the coffin. That would be nice. I'd buy a suit to come to the funeral.
WTF is right.
My guess is that the whole process is driven by the need to spend what seems to be a significant amount, perhaps because the players involved (NYS, our Federal Delegations) can't really make a smaller transaction, or because the local players want to have something big to point to.
No matter what the reason, once you get "one, big number, and that's it" on the table, all the different constituencies vie for a piece of the pie, and you get these weird fusions driven by interest groups rather than real need.
There is also a trait common to just about every Rochester works project I can think of, which is "negotiating down." We start with a great idea and then argue about it till it sucks. I'm thinking particularly of Frontier Field which ends up being about a third of the size of the stadium it was meant to have replaced.
I think that housing is one of the most important things, probably more important than a theater or even the bus terminal. I've got to think that MCC + housing equals a big boost for downtown.
That's an interesting question, but as an "alumn-not," which is an MCC student who didn't graduate, I don't see how going to MCC necessarily requires housing on-campus or nearby. It would be interesting to know how many people would use it, though as I understand it, the Brighton campus is just about booked, so maybe you're right.
I just wish someone would go back to the Amtrack/Greyhound/RTS idea. I think it was brilliant and entirely underappreciated.
If the housing is affordable, it would be a big win for someone who works downtown, rides the bus, and wants to take a class or two at MCC.
But that's a big "if". I don't know if the group of folks who ride the bus or attend MCC downtown (which as I understand it, is mostly a night campus) are going to be priced out of those apartments.
That's a good point, and I'm not sure how the nBaum plan works on that: the tendency in downtown building projects has been towards high-end living quarters of a type I seriously doubt the RTS ridership is in a position to afford. But who knows?
Hello all. I like this new site and look forward to talking with and meeting all of you at some point. Thanks for the RSS subscription on the front page as well.
Anyway, right now I'd just like to chime in a little bit on the housing detail as well as the concept of the intermodal transit center.
I can't imagine this housing is intended to mesh much with MCC beyond the shared courtyard. I'd also say for now, I don't think people who are moving into these types of downtown spaces have the correct attitude with regards to reducing or eliminating car dependency in the dense urban environment and may not utilize RTS on a consistent basis. Developers of renos or new downtown condo towers still use parking and ease of vehicle use as a selling point.
I'll let my experience with RTS help me segue into the concept of a combined transit center. As a monthly pass holder, I've become familiar with a lot of routes and the way they interact. Syracuse has something I'm assuming we are talking about when we propose combining the prevailing transit agencies' Rochester hubs. There are a couple of not insignificant differences compared with a similar conglomeration at the current site of our Amtrak cube (which was considered a MODERN IMPROVEMENT on a Bragdon designed masterpiece...sigh). The first is that Syracuse's station is pretty far from downtown. I guess an analogous location in Rochester would roughly be Norton Street in the days of Silver Stadium. While Centro (their bus) runs there, it is not really a practical transfer point. The second is the pedestrian impediment (and divisive entity that amputated a Central Ave. district that was still was part of the downtown) known as the inner loop. Part of what I like about the current arrangement is that Main and Clinton is the focal point. I have heard alternative arguments that stops could remain there for non-transferring patrons, but I happen to like being able to get out, get something done, and still be in the area of maximum bus traffic. Another thing that complicates matters on this front is that suburban buses that serve mostly commuters to Xerox, Basuch & Lomb, and Chase arrive and depart from the southeast corner of the Midtown superblock (there's also the issue of routes originating in the North being held up at the transfer point). Anyway, I'm rambling now. I'll just say that procedurally I like things the way they are now and feel that the improvements to be gained by putting the bus depot in the alley behind Main between Clinton and St. Paul are weather and technology related in that transfers would be more precise and trackable (GPS and monitors) with the added benefit of staying out of the cold.
-Bob
As someone who's probably going to move to an urban space in a few years, there's a real chicken and egg issue with the bus system. Rochester is so car-friendly, and the bus system is so mediocre, that it's tough to commit to getting rid of my car. (And, of course, if people who move downtown but keep their cars, the bus system is never going to have enough ridership to get better.) But having more, dense urban housing will at least get more people downtown so there's a possibility that they'll ride the bus more often.
Nice meeting you guys last night.
There's an audio podcast done by James Howard Kunstler out of Saratoga Springs and one of the episodes deals directly with the topic we were discussing about children raised in suburbia. Here's the link if you're interested: http://www.kunstlercast.com/shows/KunstlerCast_10_Children_of_the_Burbs....
The series is a very good one. I align a lot of my attitudes about urban design with Mr. Kunstler's ever since I read his book 'Home From Nowhere' (http://www.amazon.com/Home-Nowhere-Remaking-Everyday-Century/dp/0684837374). It is available in most of the libraries around here.
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