Wednesday, May 31, 2006

Newsbits: more downtown housing, Space Aliens, Mike McNamara

•Looks like there are more proposals for downtown housing. The Grand Forks City Council Finance/Development Standby Committee is meeting this afternoon to discuss "townhouses/apartments on University Avenue across from Augustana Lutheran Church and second phase of Brownstones". Looks like the developer is already talking about the second Elite Brownstones project which will be right north of downtown. I'm interested in the "townhouses/apartments on University Avenue across from Augustana Lutheran Church"...I haven't heard anything about this project before. Can't wait to hear more. It's amazing how much housing is coming to the downtown area.

Update - 6/1/2006
Tu-Uyen has some more information about the downtown housing proposals.


•Looks like the Space Aliens Grill and Bar chain is still planning to open a Grand Forks location...read more (scroll down to the bottom of the article to see the mention I'm talking about...and I wasn't aware of a new Minot location before reading this).

•Thanks to Tu-Uyen for pointing out to me that Grand Forks City Council candidate Mike McNamara has his own website. It would still be nice to see more of the candidates start blogging in these final days before the June city elections.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

I hate to betray my own moniker but I see downtown housing as a glass half empty situation... I love downtown and want nothing more than to see it succeed but these brownstones are not the way to go. They are NOT cheap and once bricks start going up I'm afraid everything will come in over budget and they will become even more expensive. The allowances for finish work on these are a joke (so I've heard) and they are already being listed with realtors because buyers have backed out. In the end the downtown housing will be $250,000-300,000 and that is not what we need downtown.

Somebody PLEASE prove me wrong. I want to be proven wrong...

Anonymous said...

That's true as far as it goes. But downtown housing should be a mix of apartments and condos, luxury and affordable. The Brownstones represent a category of housing that has been missing downtown. Because high-income residents now have a product to satisfy them, they may be more willing to lead the charge to revitalize the neighborhood.

Anonymous said...

OK a mix, that is a good thing...but still there are going to have a tough time selling 2,00 square feet for $250,000.
Why don't they build and sell what is already been proposed and approved before moving onto a second phase??

Anonymous said...

sorry, skipped a zero - obviously that was meant to be 2,000 square feet.

Anonymous said...

I've always felt, thought and said that the downtown area needs a highrise apt building that is affordable. If someone has said that taller buildings wouldn't fit in, well, I guess in a way they are right, they wouldn't fit in because we don't have any!!! Grand Forks is full of 2, 3, 4 and five story brick buildings. Downtowns and bigger buildings kind of go hand in hand don't they? that's what medium and bigger cities are. Take a look at similar sized cities such as Fargo, Bismarck, Sioux Falls, Rapid City etc..., look at their downtowns. Sometimes I think this city is afraid to grow and to look the part.

Anonymous said...

Anything more on when restaurants like Space Aliens, IHOP, Texas Roadhouse and Golden Corral plan on building or opening?

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