"What do you think you are, for Chrissake, crazy or somethin'? Well you're not! You're not! You're no crazier than the average asshole out walkin' around on the streets and that's it." 
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest tonight at the Avon Theatre with a reception with director Milos Forman.
The Connecticut Department of Transportation recently announced a slightly unconventional plan to open up Stamford's train station parking garage to bid for redevelopment as a mixed use development. The garage, operated by the CT DOT is in poor structural condition and is in need of extensive repair of replacement. The backup plan calls to replace the old garage with a newer one with added capacity (1,000 spots vs. 700) The higher “"risk/ reward" option would transform the space into a yet undefined function. "Mixed use" typically refers though to some combination of retail/ commercial/ residential space and it usually marked with an "active & permeable" street frontage. The developer would be responsible for developing a parking solution in the near vicinity of the train station that meets or exceeds the current garage capacity.
Count me among the cautiously optimistic about the potential outcome.
That's not to say there are not concerns, all of which are valid. Stamford station is a major hub along the metro north line and hundreds of commuters park daily at the station and ride the train. The garage currently stands very conveniently adjacent to the station. Moving the parking further from the station raises issue of inconvenience at best, added commuting time walking or riding a shuttle, and reduction in safety at worst, crossing busy roads or having the garage pushed further into a sometime dicey neighborhood. This would only leave commuters with two options, swallow the inconvenience & bear safety concerns or battle an already congested I95 in their cars. That scenario is obviously the opposite intent desired in "Transit Oriented Development".
So why change a good thing? Won't replacing a garage her just necessitate a garage elsewhere? Why not a mixed use building there? Unfortunately the city seems to be in a situation where the garage needs to be replaced regardless, and total replacement will actually be far cheaper than repairing the existing structure. That is 2+ years of demolition & construction to replace the garage on the same spot. 2+ years of displacing parking for commuters at Connecticut's busiest transit hub is a problem in the making any way you slice it. I recently heard a quote from White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel that I find appropriate, "Never let a serious crisis go to waste"
Our Metro North station is a key lynch piece in Stamford's success thus far, helping it function as both a bedroom community for New York and providing convenient access for the reverse commuters coming to work at businesses lured to town by cheaper rents. I do not believe though the asset is fully being leveraged. A a major hub on the Metro North line & stops along the Amtrak, Stamford station is how many experience Downtown Stamford and the city as a whole. It is one of the biggest "billboards" for a city that it is completely walled off from. I95 forms a barrier to the north and the garage walls it from the South End. Breaking a wall and replacing it with an aesthetically pleasing, active building helps develop Stamford into the dynamic, sustainable community it's evolving to become.
Can the guy with the folded up Wall Street Journal and travel mug racing to catch a train appreciate any of that? I still think there are benefits to developing the neighborhood around the station and this plot in particular for commuters that have not been clearly articulated yet. A well designed building functioning as somewhat of a "commuter center" with retail and services focused towards our traveling neighbors has the greatest potential for the garage footprint. Many of these can help commuters save time by eliminating car trips on the way home. A gym to work out in before or after work. A daycare for the rugrats. A cleaner and tailor to drop off clothes. A pharmacy to pick up prescriptions. A market to pick up a prepared meals to bring home for diner. If it is open and attractive to the street, it will also be a benefit to other residents of the South End and act as an asset to this gentrifying neighborhood in general. This type of develop recognizes it is next to the station and provides the most appropriate use. I'd be less enthused about displacing all the commuter parking solely for housing or offices.
Which brings us full circle back to the parking. If the convenience and safety for the park and ride commuters is adequately addressed especially within a very small radius from the existing garage, the situation seems a winner for all parties.
As I see it, there are two developers well positioned to take up the challenge.
W&M/ Jonathon Rose Companies: Metro Green. Directly in back of the current Stamford garage is the site of the planned Metro Green development comprised of 5 buildings: an office tower, three residential building and a parking garage. The first phase, an affordable residential building along Henry St is near opening. The developer recently announced their intention to push forward with the second residential building, now switched to more affordable housing rather than the original plan for market rate units. A few years ago there was talks with the developers to incorporate a larger garage into their plan to absorb parking for the station which seem to have fallen through. Metro Green's adjacency to the station makes them best suited to handle station parking in a location convenient to the park & rides. If Metro Green absorbed the station into their development they could add retail to their planned mix of housing and office space. A garage that served the entire development and the station could be wrapped in other uses and be barely moved from its existing footprint. It is also largely accessible via to the soon to open Urban Transitway. The downside is alternative parking would still have to be arranged during construction since a new garage as part of Metro Green would most likely overlap some on the footprint of the old garage.
Building & Land Technology: Gateway at Harbor Point. To the west of the station the Gateway office tower is planned on the site of a former factory and is one of five footprints in the South End for the massive Harbor Point redevelopment. Rebuilding the station garage as a mixed use development certainly fits in with Harbor Points "sustainable community" and it could be attractive to the developer to tie their project directly up and to the station. The station parking could be worked into the Gateway plot which in earlier drafts actually involved extending the train platform and building pedestrian walkways from the building to the tracks. Reworking those into features back into the plan is certainly doable and keep the walk from parking to the station short and off busy streets. Since the garage is also removed from the current location, it can be constructed while the old garage is still in service leaving no messy in-between time trying to coordinate interim parking. On the downside, the location is not connected to the current termination of the Urban Transitway, which millions was spent on with the express purpose of smoothing auto traffic to the station.
I think in a small way the situation is similar to the recent closing of traffic in Times Square. Both recognize that there are certain areas important to the overall identity of a city and a number of concerns must be weighed accordingly. 
This is nuts, Stamford was a locale in the feds terrorist bust.
On May 6, the five men drove to Stamford to pick up the explosives and the Stinger, according to the complaint. The location was carefully chosen in advance, but not by any of the men in the vehicle.
The Stamford police were approached by the F.B.I. several months ago, officials said, and asked for help in finding a warehouse where a meeting with the suspected terror cell could take place. A warehouse on the Waterside section of town was chosen and wired for video and audio for the meeting.
The men, after the brief scare about being followed, eventually made it to Stamford. There, they inspected the explosive devices. Each weighed 37 pounds and was inside a canvas bag. None of them, nor the Stinger missile at the warehouse, was operational, having been disabled by the F.B.I.
While it’s not always a smooth go for national restaurant chains in town, there has been a mini-boom in local chains/ expansion locations.
Mary Anne’s & BUtterfield8 are NYC transplants and Barcelona joins a long list of Connecticut locations. In Columbus Park, Market was a new addition from Match in SoNo and Layla’s Falafel is new location for owners with spots elsewhere in Stamford and in Fairfield.
Are we craving any new ventures from another locale entrepreneur?
I’m giving an open invite to Chef Jeff to bring his Southern BBQ to the CTW. Jeff’s Cuisine in SoNo is great, but slightly confined in its space. Come on Jeff, you don’t have to abandon SoNo, but an outpost in Stamford that is a combo restaurant/ club would be well received. The old Sabatiello’s location strikes me as a winner. 
Any other ideas?
Here is a heads up on an interesting sounding documentary on PBS tonight at 8p about infrastructure and transportation modern American cities.
On May 20th, Blueprint America: Road to the Future, an original documentary part of a PBS multi-platform series on the country’s aging and changing infrastructure, examines the choices we can make as the country invests in its infrastructure, and how they can affect the way we live.Hopefully it can provide some inspiration to Stamford.
Host and veteran correspondent Miles O’Brien goes to three very different American cities - Denver, New York and Portland, and their surrounding suburbs - to look at each as a microcosm of the challenges and possibilities the country faces as citizens, local and federal officials, and planners struggle to manage a growing America with innovative transportation and sustainable land use policies.
With roads clogged and congested, gas prices uncertain, smog and pollution creating health problems like asthma, cities that once built infrastructure to serve only automobiles and trucks are now looking to innovative new forms of transportation systems - like trolleys, light rail, pedestrian walkways and bike paths.
A new bar/ restaurant Butterfield8 on Bedford is now open. Anyone checked it out?
Down restaurant row, Mary Ann's Mexican and Barcelona are both chugging along on construction and look ready to open soon.
The Bon Jovi brother club slated for the Turtle's old spot has a name - 84 Park. Nothing further so far about that.
Uncle Dai's, a solid Chinese joint on Atlantic is under renovations.
Also Houlihan's bit the dust already after 6 months of paying no rent. That space, along with the adjacent, soon to vacate, Trump Parc Sales Center under Target open up some interesting possibilities. Combing the spaces could offer a decent footprint for a natural/ organic supermarket the downtown has been pining for. A really can't see another chain restaurant ready to jump in and follow a failure like that.
I heard a fairly reliable rumor that a CVS will fill the ground floor retail space under 11 Forest , the reconstructed children's furniture store off Bedford St, possibly as early as July.
I can’t believe I didn’t see that coming, pharmacies along with bank branches are the few retail developments that typically grab any foothold as of late. (Walgreens in Glenview House and First County Bank in Eastside Commons sit among empty stores in those new developments).
CVS isn’t a bad move for the spot, there is a lot of residential in & around the area within walking distance that is under served by “practical use” retail. If the mini-market on Prospect Street pans out, the area will be in business for convenience in walking distance.
Drugstores are usually among the worst offenders of throw-away buildings. James Howard Kunstler has a great riff on them in one of his “Kunstlercasts”. The potential CVS on Forest, and the recently opened Walgreens under Glenview House on the East Side though aren’t nearly as egregious. They are mixed use buildings with housing above, equally accessible to pedestrians and cars, and simply “programming” in an overall form – meaning the building isn’t entirely contingent on the drugstore chain being there. If the drugstore didn’t go there, something else could. If the store went out of business, it wouldn’t simply be a choice of finding another drugstore chain to replace it or tearing the building down. Compare that to the long delayed CVS up the road in Bulls Head, which will ultimately end be the usual unremarkable mini-big box drugstore outpost complete with strip mined hill/ concrete retaining wall. The location would definitely be better served by a building more in line with Glenview or 11 Forest, something that can help define the neighborhood and move it a few degrees away from the clusterfuck of traffic and crappy buildings it is now.
I believe I called this out months ago. Alive @ Five reached a point last year where it could not sustain itself under the same parameters going forward. Enter two new rules - $5 entry fee after 6:30 and no kids between 12 & 21.
The Advocate quotes are registering their indignation and Topix isn't far behind. They hate the acts, the fee, the size, age restrictions, etc.
Let's take a step back.
The fee. Without a corporate sponsor, what's the alternative? City foots in the bill (and in turn the taxpayers) or the people attending the event? Topix was bitching about the costs to the city last year for a free outdoor concert - this year free outdoor concerts put on by the city are apparently an essential service. Let's also keep the cost in perspective, times are tough - by $5 is the cheapest live entertainment event you'll probably find. I've seen bar covers higher.
The age restriction. I do feel slightly bad for the kids, but the event has always basically been a downtown business booster. While food is part of the that for the Columbus Park triangle, let be honest people aren't walking around with chicken tetrazzini in hand. Booze is driving the profit margin for the night.
The acts. Yes, I fully expect 7 headliner choices to satisfy all tastes. You are going to get mainstream acts a few years out of the spotlight and Idol contestants a few weeks short of the finale. There are more than a few venues showcasing local or indie talent in the area that frankly aren't getting the support they deserve. Rack & Roll, Seaside, and Monster B's all regularly feature original music. Alive @ Five is the corporate gig, enjoy it for what it is.
KansasCity.com (what’s with all the KC mentions on this blog as of late?) has an article about urban chickens. Some residents are trying to push Kansas City to join the other cities such as Madison, Portland, Seattle, & New York in allowing residents to keep chickens in their yards.
Their battle seems to be up hill. The prevailing sentiment seems to be that they crawled out of rural backwardness towards a suburban ideal and this would be a rollback.
But Councilman John Weber, 77, said he has seen the city grow out of farmland and sees no reason to go back.I’m not sure how a few chickens negates an area as residential, especially with some basic rules & restrictions (numbers, lodgings, no Roosters, etc). The reaction is part of an increasingly outdated frame of thought largely confined to the last 50 years of the 20th century – that all modes of life must be separated to confined spheres. This is where you live, this is where you shop, this is where you work. Understandable when cities where a mix of smog belching factories and crowded tenements. Ultimately though it wrought other miseries like traffic, sprawl, destruction of countrysides, loss of community, traditional towns and real outdoor space. “Mixed use” is a effort in urban planning to shift the pendulum back to a more happy medium. Most only equate mixed use with the “apartments over stores” model leaving only downtowns and neighborhood centers to participate. As the article touches on, mixed use can even apply to the more suburban areas of the city in meaningful ways like providing locally grown food.
“If we’re going to be residential, we ought to be residential,” he said.
KT LaBadie, an Albuquerque graduate student who started urbanchickens.org, said people are tearing out lawns to grow vegetables, and chickens are a natural next step.Could the central northern ends of Stamford even trade yards of lawn, mulch, and shrubs to vegetable gardens and pens? The Advocate had an article last week on where it is already happening in Stamford.
I overheard at diner recently a common lament in Stamford, albeit one that is not unique to any small city looking to foster a traditional downtown.
“There’s no parking downtown”
It’s a strange complaint in a city with three public parking garages, mostly underutilized, all within roughly a 5 block radius of each other. (I’ll qualify my expertise on their use because I’ve used two of the garages in the last three years at different times as my main work & house car hole - Moe Syzlak & I are not fancy enough to refer to our car storage as a “garage”) In between, you can also throw in a few commercial garages and surface lots to boot. Nearly all places of interest downtown are in short walking distance of these garages.
Let’s clarify the complaint being made then.
“There a is not enough parking within a few feet of where I want to go.”
Let’s carry the remedy of that complaint to its logical conclusion. The expectation would not be to add on-street parking. For the most part, downtown has on-street mostly everywhere that it’s feasible already. Even on a strip like Bedford, with lots of store vacancies, the on-street is already heavily used. While close to individual destinations, on-street parking is not the only answer because the existing stock is either maxed out or any new on-street would be a non-factor in added capacity.
This leaves you with more dedicated spots or lots for each individual location to provide the desired convenience. This takes up space, especially if it’s serving each individual function. Suddenly a downtown’s dense, urban fabric is stretched, even broken. Instead of walking past of a wall of storefronts on the sidewalk, they are pushed back behind parking lots. Walks between theatres, restaurants and bars are extended across rows of parked cars instead of densely packed action taking much of the charm & excitement out of nightlife. Space that could be housing, stores,or cafes is now parking. Buildings are spaced out to accommodate cars, making it longer to walk between locations, in which case you might as well drive between stops. All of this makes a downtown indistinguishable from any other highway strip mall corridor.
The trade off for a vibrant downtown (walkable & dense development allowing people to experience more up close in less time) is that the chance of parking adjacent to your destination is diminished. Route 1 Norwalk is your place if that’s your angle. I would even argue that the walk across the WalMart parking lot might be longer than most people would have to make from one of Stamford’s garages to their destination.
This is definately a big picture approach, and maybe on the micro level it can be a pain in the ass to an area conditioned on drive-in/ drive out convenience. I think there is a few steps the city can take to make this pill easier to swallow.
All garages need to be clean, well lit, and safe (The Summer St garage is a good standard it’s brother’s can strive for.) Increased street signage directing drivers to garages would also help.
On-street meters should be modernized with pay stations and credit card acceptance. For instance, you can add time to a meter where you are parked on Summer St from a station at Columbus Park.
The city should draw a clear line to where parking fees are directed. If they funded downtown improvements (planting trees, installing street lights, refurbishing sidewalks, etc) the public might be less inclined to complain about parking fees.
If you still are not comfortable with short walks or nominal parking fees please be ready to trade in the health of the Downtown as a whole for the solution:
Fictional superheroes may have blown us up, some street denizens come close to looking the part, but Stamford is lacking a full fledged superhero like the Shadow Hare of Cincinnati.
Ouch – how often do the homeless laugh at you, especially when you are handing them food.
Shadow Hare is one of many misfits committed to the real life superhero gig. Rolling Stone laid out the sad tale of Florida’s own Master Legend back in the winter. Many are listed in the World SuperHero Registry, a site on the forefront of 1995 web design.
Some fashion advice Mr. Hare. A cape may be part of the superhero aesthetic, but when you’re 5 foot nothing, 100 pounds soaking wet, it’s not to your advantage to lend a adversary something he can use to wrap around your neck and choke you out.
I’ll admit thwarting crime that happens to take place in front of them or feeding the homeless are noble tasks. It’s truly unfortunate that there are no public service professions they can pursue or organizations they can lend time to that tackle these same problems while sparing the public at large the site of their junk in spandex.
I came across this video that’s ties into the Car Dependency post from last week. The piece, created by Arnold Imaging for Kansas City Public Television, re-imagines parts of KC rebuilt among light rail lines.
Most people do not know that Light Rail is a land use issue - and not just about transportation. This video shows how pedestrian friendly developments are created around station locations, making light rail a catalyst for positive change in the community.In other words, there is potential for a “build it and they will come” phenomenon with Light Rail. For those who doubt, I’d point to projects both proposed and under construction in the last few years around the city’s most prominent transit stop, Stamford Station on the Metro North Line. Harbor Point, RBS, Metro Green (already proposing phase II) all owe their existence in Stamford largely due to their proximity to the train. Rail, which is hard coded into the city, albeit at a higher investment level, attracts these patterns of development whereas bus lines alone do not.
Imagine KC from Arnold Imaging on Vimeo.
Sure overall the video may feel a little corny, and the message at 1:26 in seems to be that Transit Oriented Development can get you laid (not arguing it can't), but it does lay out an environment many would recognize as more attractive to live in than say a car ghetto like High Ridge Road.The RBS building architect recently bragged in an article in the Advocate that the building he designed would be "will be a city unto itself" no doubt referring to the many amenities enclosed like a bank branch, a cafeteria, gym, & rooftop garden. In other words, RBS is designed to function entirely independent of its surroundings in Stamford.
This of course is not unique, you need only look to Stamford's numerous office complexes nearby to see their contributions to downtown vitality comes in increments quite small in comparison to their size. Downtown vitality or “street life”, the idea of people in public going in and out of buildings, whether for an express purpose (live, work, shop) or just to hang out (recreation, entertainment) fosters a more interesting environment and has a variety of benefits including increased safety business . Developments may be the vessels, but people are the real currency in downtown vitality and different kinds of development bring a better return on investment against street life.
An article in the Calgary Herald, found way of the Making Places blog, points out that students are among the stronger participants and some of the best ROI for this type of vitality.
Just a note - "post secondary" is what chanuks call schooling after high school.
Post-secondary students are great generators of urban vitality, not only because of their numbers, but because of their lifestyle.This is why a bill recently passed in the State Senate that will require UConn to study alternative uses for its Washington Blvd. parking garage is import. The garage, prone to flooding and at the end of its lifespan can be rebuilt as a another single use parking structure, or it can be re-imagined as some combo of dorm, classroom, retail space. The parking needs of the school could easily be designed into the new structure and UConn could subsidize parking in either the Target or Summer St garages during construction. Additional classroom space or student residency options increases the presence of a demographic beneficial to downtown that would not arrive via office complexes or luxury condos. In a state with issues of youth flight it could also help establish more young adults in the area.
Student schedules mean they are in and out of classes at different times of the day, so they can hang out in nearby cafes, bookstores, shops and public spaces almost anytime, any day of the week and any month of the year -- especially on urban campuses, where there are evening and summer classes.
Contrast this with office workers. They generally only work weekdays and have to be at work by about 8 a. m.
They are let out for an hour at noon, and leave for their homes for the day about 5 p. m.
But most post-secondary students don't have to go right home after work to deal with kids and dogs, so they are more apt to stay downtown and socialize.
Post-secondary students are predominantly young and restless. While they are concerned about clean and safe places, they are not as paranoid about this as some condo and office workers can be.
In fact, their increased presence at all hours of the day and night will make downtown safer, which in turn will encourage others to venture downtown.
The more people there are, the safer downtown becomes and the more vitality there is.
What does all this have to do with condos, you ask?As the condo market cools, it may be beneficial to developers to consider incorporating student housing as somewhat of a guaranteed fill. It also helps deter creation of what the article describes as a “high end ghetto” of luxury condos, offices and stores with little street life accessible or interesting to “ all ages, backgrounds and wallet sizes”.
Well, I am thinking that perhaps some of sites purchased for condos would make good student residences sites.
I think a creative developer might want to strike an alliance with one or more of the downtown post-secondary schools to build student residences.
I also think there might be a market for buildings which have private residences on the upper floors, with student residences in the lower ones.
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