Officials juggle vision for downtown Fairbanks
Published Monday, August 18, 2008
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FAIRBANKS — The Fairbanks North Star Borough Assembly has yet to decide whether Vision Fairbanks, a plan to rewrite the community’s vision statement for downtown Fairbanks, should hold the same legal weight as the larger Regional Comprehensive Plan.
Local laws require public officials to follow the comprehensive plan — a Fairbanks-specific, long-term guidebook for local government — when tapping zoning laws to decide which parts of town are best suited for homes, business, industry or some mix of the three.
The comprehensive plan, however, is vague enough to offer some leeway in those decisions. Vision Fairbanks, which would become an arm of the comprehensive plan, is far more prescriptive. It includes details for key public projects — more on-street parking, a public square on Cushman Street, better sidewalks and a new transit center — that supporters say would spur developers to open more stores downtown.
The Borough Assembly has scheduled a Thursday night public hearing on Vision Fairbanks, which has inched its way through a public review following a year of work by an urban design team.
Mayor Jim Whitaker has asked that it be treated differently from other arms of the comprehensive plan: As a “recommendation” that “could be modified.” He has said doing otherwise would leave public officials to jump through hoops before straying from any part of the 100-page plan.
The assembly is still split, if a public work session early this month offers an indication, on whether to follow Whitaker’s lead. Guy Sattley unconditionally backed the approach, saying he wanted to avoid locking the borough into a detailed land-use plan.
“The only thing I’m going to vote for is if it’s as as flexible as the comprehensive plan is now, where we get its advice and then do what the majority (on the assembly) think is correct,” Sattley said.
Assembly member Luke Hopkins has called for sticking largely to Vision Fairbanks’ blueprint, which extends to land on both sides of the Chena River. Hopkins pointed, during the same work session, to hundreds of residents who helped create Vision Fairbanks last year and questioned why a nine-member assembly should be allowed to piecemeal changes as it’s implemented.
“I don’t think that’s the right way to approach public policy,” he said.
Bernardo Hernandez, the borough’s planning director, has said a commitment to details of the plan — which also outlines future office districts, picks sites for a proposed skate park, and includes diagrams for wider sidewalks — would prevent future officials from “blantantly” ignoring it.
“This plan needs to transcend administrations and assemblies, and we need to have a continuity involved here,” he said at the work session.
The assembly could vote to approve or reject the plan immediately following Thursday’s hearing.
Transit options
A detail of the revitalization plan that calls for moving the community’s central bus stop has caused some head-scratching during the public review.
Vision Fairbanks includes room for a multipurpose transit center just west of the Sadler’s building — a site its supporters hope will eventually become downtown’s retail “anchor.”
Proponents have called the plan a “long-term” project, indicating a new transit center could take some time to build. Still, some public officials have questioned the need for a new transit center after they, two years ago, opened a central bus stop on Cushman Street less than one block away.
David van den Berg, who directs the Downtown Association of Fairbanks, said Vision Fairbanks organizers hope to eventually replace the two-year-old bus stop with a public square. The square, the idea goes, would draw people to a more pedestrian-friendly Cushman Street and, in doing so, make the surrounding business district more attractive to entrepreneurs, he said. And the bus stop’s site is already public land, unlike many other potential sites, van den Berg said.
“It’s a recipe with all the ingredients that make for successful downtowns,” he said of the plan and the proposed square.
The plan calls for tucking the future transit center into the ground floor of a proposed parking building, one that includes part-and-ride spaces for cars, public and private bus service and bicycle parking.
Contact staff writer Christopher Eshleman at 459-7582.
Community Discussion
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While all those smart people were wringing their hands about what to do with "downtown" the private sector was providing what consumers want- namely the commercial real estate development along the Johansen Expressway. Lots of free parking. No nasty parking tickets from a City that seems intent on driving people away. No drunks accosting customers...
Yep. You Vision Fairbanks people are years too late.
I agree, 11
That development is amazing and the ample parking is wonderful....
I chance a trip downtown and am accosted by drunks - - its a wonder I ended up taking the relatives to good ole wal-mart...
add to vision fairbanks demolition of the Mecca, removal of the drunks and other trash, and a beat cop and maybe I'll return...
A public square just isn't gonna cut it - - but maybe the gangs can use it for drive-by practice! Soon they will be the only people that frequent the downtown area
Move the borough bus depot or are you going to tear it down and rebuild? After spending how many millions of taxpayers dollars to build and remodel it a few years ago, it doesn't fit it with your grandiose plans of revitalizing the downtown area? Seems like the city and borough governments have no problem wasting other people's money and hopefully we'll replace them with more conservative members in the coming elections.
Build a strip mall near WalMart. Move every downtown business which wishes to move, into the strip mall. Leave the remaining space for more gov't buildings.
Let the bureaucrats deal with a lack of parking downtown, and even free up parking space for the post office, state bldg, federal bldg, unemployment office, city hall, the public defenders offices, the public guardians office in the Key Bank bldg, the fire station, the police dept, Div. of Public Assistance, Tanana Valley Campus on Barnette, the other Tanana Valley Campus on 2nd, TCC, FNA, Downtown association, parking authority, the borough building and Doyon just across the river, the Morris Thompson center, the old visitor's center, and that is just off the top of my head.
The downtown has already been taken over by the gov't, and government-like organizations such as TCC. I didn't even mention Alaska Housing projects like Golden Towers and Southhall Manor. Make it official and turn it over to the bureaucrats. One stop shopping for all governmental needs.
For a thriving downtown bring back the bars, either that or turn it over to the bureaucrats.
Does anyone have any information as to what the downtown parking garage is costing us? That is one example of a pork project that created jobs for a short time, but is now a burden on the community. Very few people use it. It can't be paying for itself. I doubt is makes enough money to cover payroll and utilities. I remember how we just had to have it. Now they are proposing more street parking. They just re-did a lot of the streets downtown within the past few years and removed about half of the street parking. That was done to force folks to pay to use the garage. Now they want to go back to the way it was and increase on street parking. What will the construction bill be to redesign the streets back to the way they were. And they already want to replace the two year old bus stop? I feel like I am in a bad twilight zone episode. The one comment they got right in the whole article was retail "anchor." If they don't get the big discount stores to move downtown, downtown will sink like an anchor.
Relocating the brand-new transit center is preposterous. No wonder most Fairbanksans won't get behind Vision Fairbanks.
JoeBtfsplk: "The new definition of socialism...."
I've never heard such a definition -- nor will anybody until the language changes dramatically and unpredictably.
There is nothing wrong, and everything admirable, about a community defining how it wishes to be. Real community entails shared space, and how we choose to shape that space amounts to nothing less than how we constitute ourselves as a people.
11801N: "... the private sector was providing what consumers want..."
The private sector was building in what it thought was the most profitable way possible. That civic abomination at Johansen and the Steese exists only because (1) the land there is cheaper, and (2) most people on most days have no other incentives to go downtown.
While Vision Fairbanks will do nothing about the cost of the land, it will address people's reasons for going downtown. It will enable us to build an attractive, vibrant, multi-use civic center to our town, where people will be able to take pleasure in walking and in meeting their fellow citizens.
Vision Fairbanks will bring business to downtown and to Fairbanks. Even though the plan hasn't been officially approved, a major gas station chain has already expressed interest in buying property in the development area: they are fully aware of the plan, and they want in on the business it will bring. Statewide and national organizations will want to bring their conventions here, since (according to the plan) a combination hotel/convention center will be built along Cushman just north of Airport Way.
Vision Fairbanks will give us attractive, useful civic space where we can meet and engage with our fellow citizens. Our First Amendment right to peaceable assembly means little if we have no places to assemble that are easy to reach and pleasant to spend time in. Fred Meyer is not civic space. But a downtown designed for pedestrians — with parks, wide sidewalks, a public park square, and meaningful destinations — is.
Vision Fairbanks is a plan for social justice. Our current city planning favors segregated land uses, which demand a large expense of time and money as people just get from one distant place to another. But not all people can afford to spend 15-30% of their household income on a car. With a mix of retail, commercial, civic, residential, and recreational uses, downtown will become a complete, walkable neighborhood to those who live there and a one-stop destination to those who don’t.
Vision Fairbanks is a plan for a true city center: walkable, attractive, human-scaled, pedestrian-friendly, and rich with a variety of meaningful destinations. It will offer greater access to civic life and our cultural wealth to everyone — including the least privileged among us, who need their community’s teaching the most.
--Paul Adasiak
"The Fairbanks Pedestrian" (http://fairbankspedestrian.wordpress.com...)
Wow, Paul....
You have enlightened me...Vision Fairbanks is truly a Utopia!
oh....one thing you failed to address though - and the worst problem downtown....
Such an attractive new feature in the city will surely attract the wonderful drunken and passed out crowd....how does the great Vision Fairbanks plan to deal with them...build them new benches to sleep on? A new fountain to pass-out by? A drive-by shooting range?
Maybe we could sprinkle them with fairy dust and they will all just fly away - - hopefully much like this proposal
Lets concentrate on the problems first - then I will pitch in and help you build this Utopia
A huge chunk (as in major) of the city property tax money goes to provide services to all the non-taxable properties downtown. The kids on the council just keep "expanding for dollars" to keep it going. Has a nice ring to it.
Paul Adasiak where can I get some of what it is you're smoking?
Apparently Fairbanks already has a pretty good drive-by shootin' range - College Road.
This is a serious question - Why is downtown planning a borough issue rather than a city issue?
OK well it seams as though a lot of you haven't taken the time to actually read the plan for downtown. I am a life long Fairbanksan and I am very pleased by the plan. I know that many people dont like change and that is great in some areas, such as the change Obama wants to bring that is change no one wants, but when it comes to downtown it is great. Many of the issues that are being brought up here are easily addressed, like the money, most of it is comming from privet sources not the city or borough. Also I am sure you would agree that cleaning up downtown and bringing in more foot trafic will stop the "drunk" problem because the sad truth is that people like that are not comfortable in high class areas, therefore if we raise downtown to a high class successful feel the drunks will find the door on their own. I know someone is going to say it so I'll say it for you "then they will just go inhabit some other area of town so what good is that". again its simple.... there will always be drunks the best thing to do is push them to an area where they will do the least harm. Dont call me a hatemonger it is just the truth. We all love this City and want the best for it so that is why the MAJORITY of fairbanksans ARE behind Vision Fairbanks.
Hopefully they will come up with a "no shooting zone". As for downtown Fairbanks, take note that it has pretty much, except for the government and non-profits, moved a few miles north.
Another parking garage to sit empty, parks, another transit center, bycycle parking, wow I cant wait to go downtown. All the good locations are already taken up with tax free government buildings or non-profits. Visions are just that , some of them are nightmares, this one sounds a lot like the latter.
Why is the borough running the Citys business, because it can. THe big fish always eat the little fish. Remember there is no CITY of Anchorage, the same will happen here if we ever get smart and get rid of at least one layer of government. Good luck..
Whitaker must be looking for something to name in his honor. How about the Borough land fill. The resting place for all of his schemes.
James: "Paul Adasiak where can I get some of what it is you're smoking?"
Here's my recommended reading list, the best place to find what I'm smoking: http://fairbankspedestrian.wordpress.com.... Kunstler, Kay, and Duany et al. are all easy to start with; Putnam's book, while academic, is seminal reading on social capital. Manty is pretty dry; you might want to skip him for now.
One theme that pops up again and again in these books is that city planning is more than beautification: it has a major effect on how people live. Good city planning can help increase business, curb crime, and strengthen community ties. Bad city planning, through its effects, can increase crime, disenfranchise the poor, and elevate pollution.
I have been to every public meeting and workshop on Vision Fairbanks -- unlike you, I'll wager -- and the plan is based on, and conforms to, principles that have worked for *millennia* to make cities pleasant, just, and prosperous places. So the question I'd put to you is: Should our city -- our human-built environment -- be a pleasant, just, and prosperous place? If so, what objection do you have to a plan that would help make it thus?
I find it interesting that the City of Fairbanks has deteriorating neighborhood streets, uncontrolled drug houses, gangland shootings, and for crying out loud a brand new transit station. And all anyone can say is lets tear down the new trsansit station and make this looser downtown area a big money pit. Take the book and burn it and focus on the whole community! Why is it always special interest, special interest?
akguy: "Lets concentrate on the problems first - then I will pitch in and help you build this Utopia"
Are you saying that the Borough should not work on more than one project at once? Are you saying that any attempt to help downtown be a profitable, lively civic center should wait until our problem with chronic inebriates is fixed?
That's a funny way of pursuing public policy.
As Want2BlikeLincoln suggested above, people are less comfortable misbehaving in high-traffic areas. The very influx of shopping, meeting, strolling people that this plan will give rise to (not cause directly, mind you) will make downtown a less comfortable place to be visibly drunk. That is one of the benefits of high-density development: with more eyes on the street, bad behavior is harder to hide, since casual community "policing" goes on effortlessly all the time.
I suggest to anyone posting to actually look at what all is on the downtown visions plan before passing judgement on the little information provided here. These are some of the key components that they feel will bring resistance, they are not the entire plan. Any and every community needs to have a plan on how it will grow, sometimes that means that areas that have already been developed need to be redeveloped to go into the future. Its kind of like building a four lane road, when you build it the expectation should not be that all four lanes are full from day one, it is to accomodate for ten or fifteen years down the road.
Yes, they may have missed the boat for now, but times will transition even this and they need to have a developed plan for this community that looks out for the community and not just developed by buisness owners who owe an answer to stockholders not citizens of the communities they serve.
if the vision of Fairbanks was so important to the image of Fairbanks,quit thinking of the sourdough image and move on to being a part of Alaska,and make things happen,its a our town and keep the sourdough out
Gosh what a surprise...
The folks in the city want something else that the folks out in the far reaches of the Borough will have to pay for...again
Vision Fairbanks is a plan for social justice. --Paul Adasiak
Sounds like a socialist phrase to me.....
Wasn’t there something in the DNM a few weeks ago about these Vision people wanting the borough to refuse building permits for big box stores until a certain percentage of the retail space down town was filled?
I thought the Marriott was going to be the big anchor…..or was it the Key Bank …..Both of which pay taxes I hope…. no I’m sure it was the new courthouse…. Perhaps the new cultural center will be the draw needed.
The most vibrant I can remember downtown being was back in the mid 70's before we became so cultured and socially conscious.
How many people do you think will want to be hanging around the public square when it’s below 0? I’ll take the big box stores and their huge selection of goods. It's as close to 1 stop shopping as you can get. What it might cost me in fuel I save in parking fees, parking tickets and spare change.
Thats the thing about Fairbanks,Whos?a sourdough?P.S its alaska and and we have no room for want-abe,
"As Want2BlikeLincoln suggested above, people are less comfortable misbehaving in high-traffic areas."
So untrue it hurts!
Example Detroit - - - for years they poured money in to areas in and around Cobo Hall and Heart Plaza to revitalize the city...millions upon millions!!!!!
guess what - it got worse and worse and eventually everybody left...
now - the few welfare recipients remaining don't even have to debate who will turn out the lights when the last resident leaves...cause someone stole the damn bulbs!
Downtown has been dead since 83. Bring back the bars and get historic gambling on the Nenana riverboat. Otherwise, I just avoid downtown like the plague.
Unless we clean up the gang and public inebriate problems, any attempt to remake the downtown is useless. Last night I was accosted by a drunk in the downtown post office at 6 PM. He did not touch me or threaten me, just wanted me to help him out, started to show me some papers. So technically he was not committing a crime. But did I stick around to see what he'd do? Of course not. We have 500 unsupervised children between 10-18 in this town, we have families that are not making ends meet and elders that cannot afford their medications. Why are we wasting money moving a transit station and putting in trendy little benches and lights?
Who out there thinks the Feds or the State will fund this now. The City and Borough Assembly's idea of a field of dreams. Build it, but wait the Feds money didn't come.
akguy: "'As Want2BlikeLincoln suggested above, people are less comfortable misbehaving in high-traffic areas.' So untrue it hurts!"
Sorry, I shouldn't speak so categorically. It's easy to do when you're trying to hurry off to work.
First: By "traffic", I meant pedestrian traffic. The presence of people who might see you from their windows or walk by you on the street. The presence of people who, feeling a small surge of civic pride, might accost you if you misbehave. Obviously, auto traffic does little to deter bad behavior: people are moving too fast to inconvenience themselves by stopping and taking a concern.
Second: I believe that there are upper limits to the population density where this holds true. Too few people, and there's too little accountability. But too many people, and they feel crowded, under constant assault, and they feel their only recourse is to ignore what's going on around them. I certainly wouldn't advocate for the construction of twenty-story apartment blocks, for just that reason.
However, nothing in the Vision Fairbanks plan invites anything like the population densities that cause people to turn inwards and start avoiding the life on their own streets.
theabowman: "Unless we clean up the gang and public inebriate problems, any attempt to remake the downtown is useless."
Would you like to put off the revitalization of downtown until every other problem there has been fixed? Do you abandon all hope of our community's tackling several problems simultaneously? I hope that's not what you're saying.
I live downtown and like to walk around with my young children -- so you can bet I'm concerned about drunks. But nothing about our choosing to direct growth in this way will prevent us from dealing with them. In fact, as I've already suggested, the presence of more people (to some upper limit) will make public misbehavior harder to get away with.
"Why are we wasting money moving a transit station and putting in trendy little benches and lights?"
You will find the Vision Fairbanks plan available on the web page of the Borough's Department of Community Planning: http://co.fairbanks.ak.us/CommunityPlann.... You will see, if you look at the PDF of the plan (also available in paper at the public library), it is far more than "moving a transit station and putting in trendy little benches and lights". If you had been at any of the public workshops (and I'm sad to say, I can no longer find those PDFs on the Borough or the Downtown Fairbanks websites), you'd have seen that the plan is rooted in (1) community input about preferred development and areas of concern, and (2) city planning principles that have worked beautifully (when applied) for millennia.
It saddens me that you would reduce Vision Fairbanks to a cartoon of the complex, well grounded, socially just, and profitable downtown plan it is.
This is insane! I wish I had gone to those meetings back then, but I never imagined this would get off the ground. Now its starting to scare me...
I live downtown, ok. Have since I moved here. I remember using the trailer bus stop while they were building the new one. I still use (and like!) the new station, even as I now work downtown. They are actually smart and have securitas there to keep it free of any problems. I love it.
When I first heard about it I thought, sounds nice but its pie in the sky thinking; the city just has no budget. Now it sounds more and more like someone's idea of this is best for everyone and so it mote be!!!
Bulldoze the bus station so we spend three more winters waiting in the cold? Build another parking garage? For frells sake, why? I also hear about plans for new parking and heated, covered sidewalks... WTF over? Does money fall from the sky? They want our bums to sleep on the sidewalks or something? And just from common sense I can tell you, none of this is going to bring a revitalization. No matter how nice you make it, its not an economic incentive to start or move a business there! Maybe a gas station, another tourist shop... nothing like these people must be imagining. The most it could do is open a grociers, whole foods or something, which would be nice... but would go out of business with the competition from Freds, Walmart and Safeway.
They need to re-do cushman (which they already are), hire a few beat cops and do... something... with the old Polaris. There is nothing else you can do for Downtown unless a new office-oriented business moves in. Bars would re-liven it up again, but many people (myself included) do not wish to really see all of that. A lot of poor and old people live downtown now, its not a good combination when you can't afford cops to walk the area. With the money they want to spend, they could hire blackwater to do downtown's security. If you can keep the drunks from panhandling, that is the biggest thing you can do to improve downtown and encourage investment there.
The most vibrant I can remember downtown being was back in the mid 70's before we became so cultured and socially conscious.
Well said lakloey1, I completely agree!!
Speaking of the city spending our money does anyone know why they are building large new buildings over at the city garage in Peger and Davis area? If the city is so broke where did the money come from? What are they for? Why do we need them? One of the city workers told me they wasted a lot of loader time moving a large pile of rock across the yard to make room. Have we bought a lot more equipment that needs to be parked inside or is it more office space?
>>>"As Want2BlikeLincoln suggested above, people are less comfortable misbehaving in high-traffic areas." So untrue it hurts!<<<<
I gotta agree with akguy here - Just my opinion, so YMMV, but in my experience, this is not true. BUT, ya'll don't want to pay for more public safety, soooo, these problems will not just disappear; it takes bringing the public safety people into the conversation. It also takes constant leadership, training and education of said public safety people. It sounds obvious, (to my ears, anyhoo), but I think *anyone* likes a nice clean trash free downtown, homeless or not, higher or lower economic income, drunk or not. The fact that some have expressed a dislike for downtown because of the drunks clashes, in my mind, with the want of others to "bring back the bars of the pipeline days."
-jen
Woodman - funny post... how true how true
Did anyone notice that this Vision also calls for Barnett to be the thoroughfare and Cushman to have 2 round-a-bouts? One at Airport and one where Barnett and Cushman meet north of the river? Have you had the pleasure of using them in North Pole yet?
I don't mind the roundabouts in North Pole. Everyone seems to know how to use them relatively well now that we've had time to get use to them, people drive slower through that area, and it's much easier to get out of the Safeway parking lot. I'm not saying that they'd be a good or bad idea for Cushman, but it did help the traffic movement in North Pole.
Why focus on just downtown. Isn't Whitaker the mayor of the Borough and not the city? Oh, I forgot his wife has a shop downtown. We have businesses throughout the borough, small and large.
It's obvious the chamber doesn't care about businesses outside the city either. And can I ask what does the Small Business Association do?
When I had my own business the only time I heard from any of them was when it was time to pay my dues or place an ad.
Makes you wonder who we are supporting.
The folks at the Downtown Association of Fairbanks have been good enough to re-post the presentation materials from the four public workshops: http://downtownfairbanks.com/VISION_FAIR....
Anyone who is curious about the public process that brought this plan into being, or about the city planning principles that underlie it, should check it out. All files linked from the page are PDF and may take some time for those with dial-up access to download.
Holy Cow, these people must have seen us coming!! What kind of nonsense is this package? How much did it costs?? It is all glossy and dreams of all sorts of things to make Fairbanks into a "respectable" city, but who wants our city to look like their plan?? I, for one, sure do not!! I hate to keep beating a dead horse, but Fairbanks downtown is dead....dead and gone. The chance to keep it a frontier town on the edge of nowhere (which it is) is slim and none. Just a shame we cant do like Dawson and rip up the asphalt and rebuild the old structures and have an historic town. I guess living in the bush is the last chance to keep experiencing Alaska.
The City of Fairbanks is constructing a new 18,000 sq.ft. warm storage building at our Public Works Facility on Peger Road. The funding is provided entirely by a grant from the State of Alaska that Governor Palin included in her 2007 budget.
In prior years the City rented a 10,000 ft2 warm storage space located 1.5 miles away from our Public Works Facility, which did not provide sufficient storage space for our critical winter equipment, resulting in much of our equipment being stored outside during winter months.
Our new warm storage building is located directly adjacent to our existing Public Works Facility, thus we now have one location providing combined warm storage for our Tactical Deployment Van; generator plant with light tower; Mobile Command Post; Crime Prevention Van; road maintenance equipment inclduing snow blowers, graders, loaders, end dumps and boilers for emergency thawing; Mass Casualty Supply Trailer, packers for garbage collection, etc.
Travel across town between facilities will be eliminated, all equipment will be stored at one facility where our maintenance mechanics are located, and we eliminate a very time-consuming start up each winter morning where the men had to clean vehicles of any snow and ice and allow engines to warm up to operating temperatures.
Mike Schmetzer
City Engineer & Public Works Director
I think the borough has gone along with the wishes of the city enough. Like the same liquor taxes and early bar closing just to make it fair for the city businesses. ( A couple of my favorites) That wasn't good enough so the city wants to annex some of those businesses.
Now they want the borough to go along with their utopian Vision. There are more borough residents that live outside the city than in it. Why does this have to be a binding plan? This is a vision and should remain that way. Don’t tie the hands of the future. They may actually have a better idea.
Mike Schmetzer thanks for giving some input.
Hardinglake- conjectue and malcontent, that is all that you said.
Why wouldnt the borough want to incorporate the downtown vision as long as it leaves room for modifications over time? It isnt called the borough give us some money plan, it is a vision of what they would like to develope. The city, not borough. The city just happens to be in the borough and would like their approval as to the fact that their vision for Fairbanks is in conjuntor with the boroughs plan.
The liqour taxes being raised in the borough was because the borough wanted money, that and the fact that they feel higher prices equal less drunks on the road (HA!) Either way, that was not the city placing pressure to make it equal for all buisness'. I see how easy it is to think that with the recent talk about the Fred Meyer annexation, but it just isnt so.
Hey, I do not want to end up paying for this idiocy with my property taxes!! I can foresee the borough needing to supplement the city to pay for this feces. This is so much worse than things like the Carlson Center and the likes. I, for one, think this whole plan is ridiculous and should be scrapped before it costs us any more money. We saw what the FDA did for downtown Fairbanks in the early 80s....they killed it. What are we going to do when there is no support nor revenue coming in, and we have spent millions to make Fairbanks look like any town America??
Want2BlikeLincoln: "cleaning up downtown and bringing in more foot trafic will stop the "drunk" problem because the sad truth is that people like that are not comfortable in high class areas, therefore if we raise downtown to a high class successful feel the drunks will find the door on their own."
xxxxx
That's an amusing statement. When was the last time you drove by the "high class" Mariott on the Cushman Street side at night?
Paul: "The very influx of shopping, meeting, strolling people that this plan will give rise to (not cause directly, mind you) will make downtown a less comfortable place to be visibly drunk."
xxxxx
Sorry, Paul, for it didn't help any during the pipeline population boom.
"The plan calls for tucking the future transit center into the ground floor of a proposed parking building"
I participated in the Vision Fairbanks survey at various stages, and I don't recall any opportunity to give input on demolishing our brand-new Transit Park and turning it into a public square. (Don't we already have a "public square" In GoldenHeart Park? And it's larger than the Transit Park property.)
We also already have a downtown parking garage that is rarely used. Why build another one? Even the employees of the Court House don't use the parking garage; they take up all available parking space and leave only on-street parking for others.
What I DO recall about the community survey process what a majority agreement that Fairbanks want to preserve Fairbanks' history and frontier/rustic spirit and appearance. I don't see any reflection of this mandate in the finalized "big city" plans.
I looked at the Vision Fairbanks publication. At least for Cushman and the retail anchor (Sadler's & blocks 4 Ave-7 Ave/Cushman-Lacey blocks) portion.
They talk of $28M public & $148M private investment (p10) and construction thru 2011. Quite a bit of money invested downtown.
Rebuilding Cushman Street - traffic will become one lane each way and along areas with parking, how often will traffic be backed up from people pulling in/out of the few spots gained per block/between traffic lights?
What are the utility expense of heated sidewalks? Snow removal to utilize the Cushman St parking?
For the retail anchor complex (p19), the Sadler's parking lot is changed to retail, the building changed over to a parking garage/transit hub. They call for 800 car parking? Is that realistic and how many parking levels? (I don't know how many spaces are in the Barnette goverment parking garage.)
For the adjacent are across Cushman to Lacey from 4-7 Aves, they plan for the Cushman Street Plaza. Also they show retail, commercial and some residential units (I'm presuming small apartments on upper floors). And I loved the detail of squeezing in 910 parking spaces (p21). 910 spaces - seriously???
From the period of 2010-2011, Cushman work would appear to significantly impact traffic flow throu downtown. Lacey & Noble will have to pick up the load.
Looking at the overall "vision", looks great for developing a large stretch of undeveloped property.
And looking at the "vision" north of the Chena, GVEA is replaced by residential complexes...
guess they took their FUEL SURCHARGE money and left town.
Is it even closely realistic for a long term vision?
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