Just drove by campus town

[shadow]

I am thankful Kingland is using their money they could have taken anywhere and are choosing to stay and improve the area.

Exactly! They are spending their own money for a project the City of Ames and ISU were trying to do to raise my property taxes and potentially emminent domain current businesses.

http://www.iowastatedaily.com/news/article_d6f66b86-cc15-11df-9406-001cc4c03286.html

 

[cyclone87]

Also the council is considering several potential projects to improve bike and pedestrian movement in campustown. Many of these would be a big improvement imo, especially the widening of sidewalks, bike lanes, and possible cycle track. One thing I hope they leave off is removing many of the trees that line Welch and Lincoln way, if they do remove them I hope they replace them with a smaller variety of tree (locust trees get quite large and are messy).

List of potential projects can be found here: http://www.cityofames.org/modules/showd ... ntid=16684

 

[Ms3r4ISU]

I've thought this a long time. Or at least bring it to the clock tower. Make it a pedestrian only street on weekend nights. Have bands play in the street when its nice out. Let people drink outside (but keep it to welch).....the extra revenue could easily pay for more security and needed help.

Not disagreeing with you, but everything is easy when you're using someone else's money.

 

[Havs]

Make Welch a one-way going northward and widen the sidewalks and bike lanes. Happy medium for all traffic.

 

[crawfy54]

Make Welch a one-way going northward and widen the sidewalks and bike lanes. Happy medium for all traffic.

If they were to make Welch a one-way, wouldn't you want it to be southward?

 

[chuckd4735]

Make Welch a one-way going northward and widen the sidewalks and bike lanes. Happy medium for all traffic.

If you make any changes to Welch, you close it off. I don't think Ames has a single one way in town, so you definitely don't want to have one of your more confusing traffic areas in the heart of Campustown. That section of Welch does not need a road for the businesses, and that section is not needed for adequate connectivity for the area. The benefit of shutting it down far outweighs the negative.

 

[MartyFine]

These projects are necessary to keep businesses we want in Campustown, and to bring in new business as well. Somebody needs to clean up a few of the bars around there...

 

[Havs]

If you make any changes to Welch, you close it off. I don't think Ames has a single one way in town, so you definitely don't want to have one of your more confusing traffic areas in the heart of Campustown. That section of Welch does not need a road for the businesses, and that section is not needed for adequate connectivity for the area. The benefit of shutting it down far outweighs the negative.

The intent of my idea is to eliminate some traffic and make more pedestrian space while not removing all auto traffic. More non-vehicular pedestrian malls fail than succeed in this country, so this idea goes for a happy medium, as I stated in the post. Too many people are still auto-dependent to make a complete pedestrian mall feasible at this time.

 

[driegner]

I would say honestly that we are better than Ohio State's only because you HAVE to have someone drive or take a taxi to get to the bars from anywhere near campus. Their bar scene is a couple miles away minimum.

This is completely false. There's 3 miles of bars/restaurants/retail stretching from Lane all the way to downtown. If you think Park Street and the Arena District are the entire campus bar scene, you're mistaken. High Street is pretty much all bars and food near campus.

 

[chuckd4735]

The intent of my idea is to eliminate some traffic and make more pedestrian space while not removing all auto traffic. More non-vehicular pedestrian malls fail than succeed in this country, so this idea goes for a happy medium, as I stated in the post. Too many people are still auto-dependent to make a complete pedestrian mall feasible at this time.

If this was Main Street in Ames I would agree. Campustown is not oriented around the auto, it's oriented around students who are walking. It would work here great, IMO, and if it wasn't for the fire station, it would be in the works.

 

[Havs]

If this was Main Street in Ames I would agree. Campustown is not oriented around the auto, it's oriented around students who are walking. It would work here great, IMO, and if it wasn't for the fire station, it would be in the works.

Yeah, I can see that. Widen Hayward for buses and increased auto traffic.

 

[ribsnwhiskey]

Updated image of the old First National Bank location. I'd say campustown is going to look much better in a year or so.

 

[Rabbuk]

Updated image of the old First National Bank location. I'd say campustown is going to look much better in a year or so.

This is where they should put bball players.

 

[cloneu]

Are those mountains in the background? Man they are really making drastic changes in Campustown.

 

[JSmoove]

Updated image of the old First National Bank location. I'd say campustown is going to look much better in a year or so.

This is another development separate from the Foundry one correct?

 

[alarson]

This is another development separate from the Foundry one correct?

Yeah, these two will be right next to each other.

 

[Clone1138]

The Foundry building next store where the Campus Bookstore used to be. Both of these will look really good next to each other. I wish I could say the same about the Kingland design.

 

[Cycsk]

Any word on what retail will be going in on the ground floors of these buildings?

 

[DFWClone]

I tried to look prices yesterday and couldn't find anything. I can't wait till those open. Definitely going to try and get a place there.

 

[ribsnwhiskey]

View attachment 27242

The Foundry building next store where the Campus Bookstore used to be. Both of these will look really good next to each other. I wish I could say the same about the Kingland design.

Kingland updated the design of its' building and it looks a little more similar to those 2. It'll look really good, a helluva lot better than before, but its only 3 stories.