Seeking Opportunities - Sidebar Part III

Virginia Museum of Transportation

Another area that deserves much consideration is the East End of the building. Originally the main public and railroad employee entrance to the building. The Second Street/Gainesboro bridge project dramatically altered the sense of place the building enjoyed when the grade crossing @ 2nd St. presented a much different ...perspective.

A "place" needs to re-established on the East end to allow both a strong connection to the Rail Walk and create a sense of place from the bridge.

The place might simply be a much larger, well landscaped plaza with TREES :)

Seeking Opportunities - Sidebar Part II

Virginia Museum of Transportation

The Museum is seeking community input for improvements to building and programs at "input sessions for folks who love lots of modes of transportation--cars, trucks, buses, airplanes, hang gliders, helicopters, boats, canoes, dump trucks, wheelbarrows, bicycles--you get the idea. We're the Virginia Museum of Transportation--what kind of Virginia transportation do you want to see??"
Take the Museum's Norfolk-Southern Challenge survey online @ http:\\www.vmt.org

A friend passed along this image of a reestablish aerial tram to the top of Mill Mountain from the site of the former Roanoke Mills property.

...and a link to Portland's aerial tram website:

http://www.portlandtram.org/index.htm

The birth of our City will always be reminiscent of the Railroad industry, and that we honor for the benefits we realized from such a creative endeavor. We also need to nurture and re-cultivate our innate capacity for creative endeavor for posterity.

Seeking Opportunities - Sidebar

Virginia Museum of Transportation

As opportunities arise, we embrace them and grow. In response to an invitation to participate in plans for the future; a concept of a Regional Transportation Hub being located adjacent to, and together with, The Virginia Museum of Transportation.

Establishing a "Round-About" @ Salem & 3rd, with aggressive treeplanting, will establish a pedestrian friendy prominence signalling a Regional Transportation Hub. An ideal location is created for a "Marquee" for the Virginia Museum of Transportation.

Extending the architecture of the historic building south toward Salem Avenue provides shade, protection from the weather for terminal users and museum vistors alike.

Perhaps a Regional Transportation Hub would have a Segway Rental Center. Maybe it would include a Shuttle Terminal for the Airport, the Civic Center, the Medical Centers. The Valley Metro Downtown depot? Rail Excursion connection?

Transforming such vision into reality is not under the control of individuals, but within ...the power of our community. If we can establish a community vision, we can all find ways to implement the dream incrementally.

Can the Virginia Museum of Transportation serve to help envision and describe the future of Transportation as well?
"The world will not evolve past its current state of crisis by using the same thinking that created the situation."
Albert Einstein

Seeking Opportunities - #2

Prominent and Proud

Formal Entry to our beloved Hotel Roanoke

In August 2009, 22 citizens gathered with camera in hand to document their impressions of a Walking Photo Tour through downtown Roanoke from the Historic Entry to the Hotel Roanoke & Conference Center to the Transportation Museum. At our starting point, we enjoyed the well-kept beauty of the space with intriguing views toward Mill Mountain.



Imagining ourselves as visitors to Roanoke, we wondered about the lack of a prominent pedestrian access the Higher Education Center. As we walked down the middle of the asphalt drive toward the O. Winston Link Museum (there is an adjacent walkway but it was not as open and inviting with many steps), we saw the guests transporting their luggage found the drive for vehicles to be much more convenient.



The prominence of this major space and importance to the region, as established by public investment, could & should present greater availability to the assets of our community.

As we waited to begin our tour, we observed that more shade trees might soften the space making every entry more inviting.

Seeking Opportunities - #1

North Jefferson Street

near the entrance to the Higher Education Center

In the 1950’s the grade crossing over the railroad tracks was closed between North & South Jefferson Streets creating a separation in the core of downtown. When The Hotel Roanoke & Conference Center was developed, the developers (The City of Roanoke & the Virginia Tech Foundation) saw no need to provide any connection to North Jefferson St with the exception of some service and delivery activities because the NS Office Building North had been recently vacated by the NS. When the Higher Education Center was created, its main entrance was oriented to the West to take advantage of parking & expansion opportunities. As a result North Jefferson Street lost even more of its prominence and utilization as the City’s central corridor.

Recent investigation into immediate neighborhood interest in re-establishing vitality on North Jefferson Street revealed HRCC concern that opening the Conference Center to North Jefferson would likely have a negative impact on revenues for the hotel and conference center. The Higher Education Center, the Claude Moore Educational Center, and the Dumas Center all have numerous spaces available for booking for a variety of meeting functions and sizes. Easy accessability to these alternatives presents competition to HRCC.

Apparently, the greatest immediate need at the hotel is more guest rooms. An architectural firm has been retained to develop a preliminary design that responds to this need. It is my understanding that part of the design program includes additional meeting facilities. Currently additional meeting facilities are not required, but additional guest rooms create the additional need.

In 1992, the "Renew Roanoke" campaign was launched to raise enough money to reopen the hotel. Individuals and businesses from Roanoke region donated generously to this campaign. Further funding was provided by the citizens of Roanoke via tax dollars through the City of Roanoke. The City built the conference center and the multimillion dollar pedestrian bridge to the famous City Market. As a result the City of Roanoke became partners with the Virginia Tech Foundation as owners of the facilities. In its current configuration, the HRCC is the only beneficiary of the pedestrian bridge.

The irony is that the City of Roanoke government is now positioned as an obstacle to cultivating economic development in the northern sector of downtown.

Seeking Opportunities - Introduction

Since late fall I’ve been struggling with exploring possibilities in regard to defining next steps for The Heart of Roanoke. Should it be a formal organization as defined by IRS codes? Should I continue it under my existing professional corporation? How can we engage more input from the community and design professionals? These remain questions for which I am seeking input.

When I began this adventure several months ago, my vision was that I would go through the urban design procedures that I have throughout my career in an open forum. It would be an Urban Design Lab online. Finally, during this period of “cabin fever”, I’ve realized that I have needed to get back on my original track. After months of data collection, photo comments, walking photo tours & model building; the next step is Seeking Opportunities.

The process of seeking opportunities includes spotlighting underutilized areas of downtown; disconnected circulation patterns; and infrastructure shortcomings, including utilities, streetscaping and aesthetic detractions. The following step will include proposing, critiquing, and evaluating proposed solutions to each of the spotlighted areas or problems, incrementally, yet, maintaining focus and impact on adjacent areas.

I’ll begin posting descriptions of each of the spotlighted areas, identifying problems and issues that would benefit by correction. We’ll be seeking comments from everyone focused on those identified problem areas.

I very often like to describe Community Design & Planning to gardening. Both do best with an initial plan that considers circulation, orientation to the sun, compatible planting & uses, tilling, cultivating, weeding, tending. Both are organisms that need continuing attention.

During this current stage of our adventure, we are spotlighting problem areas in our garden that need attention to allow the garden to flourish. We’ll begin on the North side of Downtown and follow with the rest of Downtown.