Riverfront District

The images posted are for the riverfront district of the masterplan. The following postings will follow a similar format (on a sheet with description).

Master Plan

Master plan and additional images posted:
Ariel of Downtown Columbus:
The ariel along with the photographs from a previous posting illustrates the nature of the downtown area. The area consists of many open lots along with a riverfront that is not addressed by most buildings and landscaping. The city has begun addressing the riverfront by creating the "Scioto Mile" which will run along the river and reduce Civic Center Drive from 5 lanes of traffic to 3 lanes. The goal is to help attract people to the riverfront along with various festivals (i.e. art, music, etc). Additionally, this solution would help achieve a more pedestrian friendly environment - which is severly lacking.

Masterplan:
The masterplan is color coded to depict the different use groups and potential greenspaces throughout the city. The major component is to begin addressing the pedestrian environment, the plan begins to create boulevards and spaces that encourage walking to destinations - additionally the reliance on cars is somewhat minimized by relocating major roadways below ground and with the addition of a rail way system (transportation drawing to be posted later).

Large Scale Section:

Waterfront Perspective:
The main feature of the plan addresses the waterfront. By adding a pedestrian bridge that connects the downtown core to the Scioto Pennisula (approx 40 acre site) it adds possibilities of further connection/interaction with further development across the river. The bridge, which would sit just above the river could be used as a destination/place for leisure activities and festivals. In addition to the bridge, a large scale building would be added, to help add year-round activities at the riverfront (i.e. bars, clubs, resturants, markets, etc.). A walkway would run along side the river, containing several small scale cafe's/resturants to help invigorate the riverfront.

masterplan prelim

The adjacency plan depicts the relative relationships that I would like to explore, while I would rather eliminate the entire core, it seems in the best interest to keep certain buildings (i.e. any historic or relatively high density office spaces) for pragmatic reasons.
One of the main items I would like to explore is the relationship of the green areas to the different areas in the masterplan (i.e. large recreational area of residential area vs. small greenspace for the office/govt area). The greenspace would also serve as transitional/connections due to the roadways being converted into greenspace (major traffic would be diverted below ground with minimal interactions for street cars).
Additionally, I would purpose the museum of art to be relocated to the riverfront, for maxium accessibility and visibility in the downtown corridor.
The residential component would be high density, based on the demographic numbers from the previous posting, there is a large void of inhabitants in the downtown - I would purpose to add between 3500-4000 inhabitants in the core area.

Population Data

Population, Number of Households and Employment numbers are based from 2005, the most current statistics that were provided to me from the MORPC. Data also includes projections through 2030 in 5 year increments. All data is for Downtown Columbus/Central Business District - defined by the Scioto River, 70/71 interchanges and 670.

Population:
2000: 3,566
2005: 4,357
2010: 10,465
2015: 14,434
2020: 16,726
2025: 18,952
2030: 19,141

Households:
2000: 2,530
2005: 3,101
2010: 7,401
2015: 8,453
2020: 9,476
2025: 10,680
2030: 93,274

Employment:
2000: 89,077
2005: 97,387
2010: 103,229
2015: 106,305
2020: 109,473
2025: 112,933
2030: Projection not available

Suburbia

Post looks at some of the characteristics that draw people to the suburbs:

Benefits of Suburban Lifestyle:

Location of home to
-Schools
-Doctor/Dentist office's
-Retail
-Resturants
-Parks
-Work

Misc:
-The "white picket fence"/green grass
-Security
-overabundance of space (spacious homes large yards)
-freedom associated with living in the suburbs (i.e. multiple cars)
-peace and quite
-pedestrian nature of neighborhoods (treelined streets, kids playing in the streets, people walking their dogs, bikes, cookouts, etc)

Masterplan Narrative

The downtown area as it stands today can be summed up by one word: void. The downtown area is composed of an estimated 5,000 people, but when I walked through the downtown area to document the area (a weekend afternoon), it seemed as if the city was absent of all inhabitants. The only life in the city was from the people at the busstops and the crackheads at the river, and to be frank, this is not the image the city wants to depict when advertising itself to developers and potential businesses it wants to attract. The city has some postives going for it, it is the capital of Ohio, so there is a strong prescence of government in the city as well as having a strong financial prescence, several banks and major corportations are located in downtown (Huntington, Nationwide, etc). A masterplan can take advantage of these positives, the city could invigorate itself economically with the addition of a controlled plan of residential development, focusing on density and amentities found in suburbia, look at plans of incorporating pedestrian friendly methods of design and scale. By creating a pedestrian friendly core, that would implement activities/needs from everyday living, this would ultimately invigorate the local economy as well as the daily lives of the inhabitants and recreate the vibrancy of the downtown area.

New Urbanism:
http://www.newurbanism.org/newurbanism.html

Follow-up Prior to wedding

This is just a small recap from before the wedding and honeymoon. I talked with both Michael and Denise prior to leaving and thought I would add a little recap of what I am planning on working this week and next.
Regarding the diagrams from before, I am going to research some census information and add that to the diagrams, which suburbs have the largest contignet working in the downtown area (more then likely Bexley, Upper Arlington, Worthington and New Albany). Additionally, I will also update the diagram to include the Scioto Mile project, since it is being implemented. A diagram will also be looked at which will overlay both the existing city grid with the original grid (which was more successful) and note the changes to grid, thereby providing a basis for the grid shift. One other relevent issue is the underground garages and walkways as well as skywalks, with the addition of these paths of movement, it takes away from the streetlevel vibrancy of downtown.