Central Hole
The infamous hole has been upgraded to Stamford’s “Central Park” apparently courtesy of Google Maps. 
Since the first comment will probably be what a great idea that would be, I’ll throw out my opinion about that being a horrible place for a park. With barely a trickle of people on the streets there and walled in on ever side with buildings larger unfriendly to the street – you would basically be setting up a base camp for what Jane Jacobs coined the “leisured indignant”.
19 comments :
Bizarre. I wonder where they got their parks information.
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West Park? And what's the "Town Center Shopping Center" south of Tresser? And how did Bobby V's get a spotlight on the map??
Lets face it, the hole wont be deleveloped for a very long time. there are too many other development sites up and running for anyone to spend time on this one.
Therefore, until the next few business cycles fill in the rest of the city, why not look at runnning a driving range (fully netted of course) at this site? Wouldn't downtown residents and office types love that? I think a driving range could get some ROI on a 15-20 year horizon. Its goint to take 15-20 years before all the other infill and south end projects are developed, making this site attractive & ripe for real estate development. SO in the meantime, FOUR!
There are many many strange things going on in google maps now. Mortons is blocks away from where it actually is, and there is also a "Kiwanis Park" where the Bank of America building is. If you zoom in, "Kiwanis Park" magically changes names into "Landmark Square Shopping Center" (which isn't right either).
We should require all developers to put enough money in escrow so that if construction stops for more than a year, there will be sufficient funds to convert the site into a park until such time as construction is ready to resume (if ever). What an unfortunate eyesore, and not the only one in this city unfortunately.
why don't we make it into a Botanical gardens like what exist in the Bronx?
Willow Street?
Driving range would be sweet! It would be great to fill in that hole with golf balls.
Paul: Kiwanis Park is the walk-through next to the Palace Theater.
Dan: Why don't cities require some sort of escrow or insurance against a project falling through? It sounds like a good idea to me.
posting a remediation bond or the like to turn stalled projects into parks will do just one thing, guarantee the buildings dept. planning board and zoning board will see alot fewer proposed developments come up. No one is going to start work and "ready" a site unless they know damn well they wont have to follow through on creating temp parks. Maybe thats what everyone wants, to stifle development....but i would recommend against doing anything to add costs to development. Lets just get cool new things done.
btw, perhaps this has been addressed ad nauseum on your blog before...but in my opinion the fate of the hole was sealed decades ago when the mall was constructed. the mall is a complete buzz kill for downtown stamford. it severed the east-west flow be terminating main street at the vets park and created a psychological and physical barrier between shopping/easting outside the mall from inside the mall. It will never happen, but i'd love to see the mall modernized to compete with the Westchester and east main street re-connected with main street by rebuilding the road under the mall through that corridor. This would create an exciting pedestrian entrance from the west side of downtown. I dont think you would have to lower the road to make this happen, but instead trimmed back on some of that extensive garage parking to create the overhead room. With east main street reconnected to main street, the 4.3 acre hole can emerge from the mall shadow as a viable development site. Until then, there just are too many better sites to work with....and sp the hole remains.
Like the idea but I guess we will never get the mall owner to spend that sort of money especially as they are not getting anything out of it..
Advocate, I agree my idea to reconnect main street is a tall order. Given the ambitious Mill River Park plans and all the development sites that will also need City attention, I dont see anything happening with my idea for another 30 years when the mall is ready for a massive makeover.
Re-connecting Main Street is a great idea, but I don’t think we need to tackle it with some kind of big dig underground road. Approaching it as a pedestrian connection is more realistic in terms of construction , and more important the reality that the Downtown will need to become less auto dependant as it continues to densify.
I think I’ve posted on this before, but if not here’s my opinion on it. Having the mall downtown is not necessarily a bad location for it. It’s better for the life of the city to encourage people shopping downtown than having the mall on a far flung end of town at the end of an interstate. The Town Center, an oxymoron if ever there was one since it essentially ate Main Street, though fails the city because its built like a fortress. The building really makes you feel like an asshole for trying to get in on foot from the street. There are very few defined pedestrian entrances that would invite users to enter from the street. It also cuts off different sections of the downtown from each other.
As the downtown continues to grow though, I’d imagine it would make good business sense for the mall to continue to develop as more permeable, bleeding into the rest of the city as a whole to attract foot traffic. The new plaza on the south end of the mall I think demonstrates it can be good business for the mall.
Imagine if the Mall reworked Saks/ Veterans Park into some kind of plaza with outdoor shops and restaurants that continued under the mall through the garage (perhaps lined with stores?) and out the other end into some kind of defined entrance. You’ve reconnected two sections of downtown, utilized Veterans Park as something more than a glorified bus stop, and made the mall more permeable to the urban fabric.
With retail in the dumps though that could either be a pipe dream for the immediate future, or the type of gimmick the Town Center needs to stay competitive and fresh. Either way, I would hope the city is proactive in discussing options like these with the Town Center.
JT, i am not advocating a road if the roadway must be sunk to make it happen. I would abandon the road idea if strictly a pedestrian walkway if the roadway had to be sunk in any manner to fit.
I agree that a pedestrian walkway is far more likely given it would be less expensive, which is key.
either way, with or without a road, the end goal would be to make an entrance and a walkway that is similar to what they recently did on the south side of the mall..with mall stores blending into the street scape and giving pedestrians a more enticing way to enter the mall and vice versa for leaving the mall.
in my opinion, for long term viability the mall needs to open up so that pedestrians and mall shoppers can more easily flow in and out with the core of downtown. with respect to the infamous hole, i dont think the hole is viable until the mall opens up to allow cross town flow from east main to main street.
all in all, no matter how its done, i'm affraid the economics arent there at this time. malls are in the hurt box. darn you internet shoppers (me too included).
one more thought, i have no issue with the downtown mall per se, its just to bad that it was designed in the manner that it was because i) as a veritical mall with 8+ stories its annoying to visit and ii) its design severs the east-west flow of downtown stamford.
like the ideas but how do we get someone to listen to us?
Is there a city department which examines this type of planning and if so how do we get them to at least think about these ideas?
Sorry for my last post, it was sloppy.
Miguel, i would start by participating in any open discussions/hearings the city has about downtown planning and zoning. our best bet is to steer/encourage the city and developers to head in these directions in the future.
Otherwise, if you really want to make things happen, buy a building and start spending $ reshapping the world. We can do lots of talking, which I like to do, but its $ that does most of the heavy lifting.
There's only one possibility for the hole in the ground... a minor league baseball stadium or even better, a multi-use arena that can book dates year-round. No need to build parking since there are thousands of spaces across the street. Of course, this city has a history of turning away developers who want to build ballparks and arenas, e.g., the Mayor Serrani/Birnbaum fiasco in the 80s that could have brought pro baseball to Stamford.
re: golf. Look at the aerial of Stamford and how much land close to downtown we ALREADY constrict to golfing: all of Gaylor Brennan/Hubbard Heights Golf Course which is larger than the more heavily used and diverse Scalzi park. To make it even worse, there aren't even sidewalks on Stillwater along the Golf Course parcel that would allow residents to walk next to it!
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