Gizzardz

I'll say. I had a conversation (rather, he was mostly talking at me) for around an hour tying all sorts of subjects that had nothing to do with each other. Sci-Fi movies, Jesus, and penile enhancements. I'll take that over the rich suburbanites bringing all their cars over here for the novelty "urban living" (hint: urban living means making at a least half of your trips without a car). I'm mostly looking forward to the retail spaces that will become available in Ibiza and hopefully, Bollinger. We certainly have our characters here. If we could bring television cameras in, it'd be a hit sitcom! We also have new management coming that will [finally] rid the building of undesirables that have brought drugs and trouble to our otherwise quiet place. Previous management was let go a week ago, if you were within a block of us you may have heard some out front cheering when word got out. We're all looking forward to those positive changes. Regarding the possibility of retail space- I thought it was an excellent idea and was looking forward to it. I'd suggest they build the store fronts right into the 1st floor. We have a little-used lobby, large cafeteria/event room, restrooms, laundry room, TV room, managers office, machine room and of course elevators all on the 1st floor. I'd suggest moving the laundry room (and our treasured vending machines!) and a small office to a single unit on the 1st floor. The event room and TV room are wasted space since so few use them, this could be incorporated into a second apartment unit on the 2nd floor making this a 98 unit building. Management conduct their business at other sites, here their office is basically a rent drop box. All that 1st floor space could be great retail space. All residents need is the back entrance large enough to get to the elevators (and of course the machine room). Any resident in here would gladly give up the 1st floor if it generated the income to keep our elevators running smoothly. Currently about twice a day someone gets stuck on one or the other. :-o

Thanks Kingfish. This week began a year long facelift project on the exterior of the building. In a meeting Monday afternoon we were shown sketches of the finished facade, very nice and more in line with newer surroundings. Destruction of the old front facade began the next morning (Tuesday). The plan includes a new entrance awning, new walkways and bench seating for the front (with wheelchair ramp of course). An exended and matching courtyard of sorts on the back entrance, shortened parking lot (same number of spaces), all new extended patio area on the south side with new patio furniture and grills. They are completely re-doing the 1st floor lobby to include more glass windows, and building a red brick facade all the way around to the top of the 4th floor, adding an aluminum edge at that point, painting the stucco from that point to the top where another aluminum edge will be added. The last phase of this project includes all-new windows for the entire building (badly needed since in many units windows are sealed closed or won't close, etc). This is a 3.4 million facelift, though we're in the dark where the money is coming from. Rumors do fly in here and the current one is that CMHA has allowed private interests to buy-in as co-owners of the building (how does one verify such a thing?). At a meeting back in May, CMHA came in and discussed with residents the possibility of building retail space in front of the building to generate income to help with monthly operating expenses. The firms hired for the current project knew nothing of that plan nor how they might fit together at a later date. CMHA directors stated back in May that their towers have become too costly to maintain, but this is the one tower CMHA owns that they will not tear down or sell.

The Ibiza design is nothing short of stunning. However, as a resident of Bollinger, I also noticed our building missing from the view towards downtown. Strangely, our site is what the highest costing condos will be looking at, being the same height. No doubt not a great selling point. I think it's worth remembering Bollinger Tower was built in '85 by CMHA specifically FOR seniors & disabled low-income residents. It's not like we are invading the neighborhood- as many folks act. Some of our residents have been here since the building opened its doors and this is their home of 23 yrs- long before the money train arrived in the Short North. The greatness of the Short North is truly the mix of folks here, I for one hope the balance isn't pushed too far up the scale (regardless of how much I enjoy my clear view of the entire west side, and living in the gallery district).