Thursday, May 08, 2008

Plans for "new downtown"

A year has passed since I first shared my vision for a "bigger and better" downtown Grand Forks. To sum up my proposal, I think the current geographic size of downtown Grand Forks is too small for a city of our size and much too small for the city I think we will become in the next few decades.

In my earlier post, I proposed an expansion of downtown to the west. Now comes word that Grand Forks city staff and JLG Architects have been working on a plan to expand downtown in the very direction that I was talking about. Check out Ryan Schuster's great blog post about these plans. I'm not foolish enough to think that my earlier plan was the inspiration for this new plan, but I am very pleased to see a plan very similar to my own presented to our elected officials, the media, and to the citizens.

My earlier plan


The new plan


I'm very excited to see bold plans like this put forth. I think this is both a doable project and a necessary project. Downtown Grand Forks has plenty going for it these days...some of us just think that making downtown bigger might also make it a whole lot better. What do you think?

23 comments:

Anonymous said...

higher resolution available anywhere?

GrandForksGuy said...

Ryan Schuster said he is trying to get a bigger map. BTW, a million thanks to Ryan for uploading this image in the first place.

Anonymous said...

Are there any apartments in town with primarily hardwood or non-carpeted floors? Friend with allergies is looking for a place.

Anonymous said...

I just don't see GF growing a whole bunch in the next 10 or even 20 years. Since 1980 the population increased an additional 7,000.

dale said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

Also, I believe the anonymous was using the population from the 2000 cencus, which according to both the city and the cencus bureau has increased to at least 5,000 beyond the 2000 cencus. (especially according to the city, which has proven more accurate in the past)

Anonymous said...

Why do people move to North Dakota?

dale said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Barbara said...

It'd be interesting to know how many of the people that left after the flood eventually came back. I left for 4 years and eventually came back, I'm sure I'm not the only one. That 3k number might be a lot smaller or it might not. Anyone know if there are stats on that somewhere.

Anonymous said...

dale did a good job of describing where a lot of the growth in NDs big four has come from (moving from the farm or NDs smaller towns. The only thing I would add is that except for each years new, or at least recent, high school grads the big 4 have pretty much drained these small towns and farms. There are not that many people left out there. They will go where the jobs are. For the big 4 to grow beyond that will take a serious effort to create jobs and to get people to move to ND to fill the jobs, both returning natives and out of staters, including new US citizens. Otherwise what we are is what we will be.

Anonymous said...

How much does a typical farmer make in a year?

Anonymous said...

Define a "typical" farmer.

They are the only ones I know that put most of their life's work into the ground every spring and then hope the hail, drought, too much rain, etc misses them so they can make enough money to do it again next year. Some years are good and some years aren't. If it was as easy as some people think, everyone would be doing it.

Anonymous said...

wow these super-boring topics are a bore, look at the comments...
more about- FOOD SEX ALCOHOL

Anonymous said...

I think if the job market was "there", GF would be a great place to live. But it isn't - mostly for creative types, although that is changing fairly rapidly.

Nice work on the map, and the new development strategy (at least finding it and posting it). It's great to see GF finding a horizon to shoot for.

I'd still like to see an investment in youth culture (at least faking the idea that the youth are welcome) in GF - in the way of a decent skatepark mostly.

There are other cities of the same size that have citywide ordinances promoting skating - granted, we're talking about Seattle, but still. It would be nice on so many fronts to see that happen - since it drives the idea of welcoming culture.

They aren't all punks and druggies; in fact most of them aren't - 99% I'd say IMHO.

Anonymous said...

Anon @ 12:30. And here I was surprised that a relatively small town HAS a outdoor mini skate park over by the police station with some rails and quarter pipes. There are kids over there almost every night with skates, skateboards, and bikes.

Matt BK said...

There's also one on the south end of town, I don't remember exactly where (somewhere north of King's Walk).

Anonymous said...

I'd like to see the Riverside Pool - if it's not going to be a swimming hole anymore - be transformed into a skatepark

dale said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Matt BK said...

Ahh, yeah I haven't been down in that particular spot for a while. Good thing someone's paying attention!

Anonymous said...

They must have moved their garbage along with the skate stuff because it was all over the ground around the skate park last week. Give them a place to skate and they dump their garbage all over and vandalize vehicles in the parking lot. Bunch of pigs.

Anonymous said...

Were there plenty of trash cans? Were they emptied regularly? That kind of infrastructure is just as important as the attraction itself. Gimme a break, they're just kids. "Git off my lawn."

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