Posted January 11, 200817 yr This morning I took a walk downtown to shake off cabin fever and check out progress on Harrison Square construction. I grabbed a couple of shots that caught my eye along the way. New copper shingles for Trinity English Lutheran. Them ain't cheap! Allen County Public Library west entrance Allen County Public Library plaza entrance Not a lot going on with Harrison Square today because of the mud from the sudden thaw and heavy rains. Some work was going on around the periphery of the site, but anything that had tried to drive on the construction roads would have gotten mired immediately. I found a gap in the barricades big enough for my skinny ass to slip through. What I thought was a crushed-stone surface turned out to be a thin layer of stone over deep, sticky, sucking mud. I 'bout lost my shoes! Sloppy tinkering with Photoshop How 'bout some more water? We're runnin' out of mud over here!
January 11, 200817 yr Great stuff, Rob! Thanks for the update, I didn't realize things were moving so quickly.
January 11, 200817 yr Great stuff! "You don't just walk into a bar and mix it up by calling a girl fat" - buildingcincinnati speaking about new forumers
January 11, 200817 yr What used to be there? Not much of value. The two businesses that I considered viable were Belmont Liquors and Bill's Palace, a pretty good restaurant that was a lunchtime sanctuary for the smokers from Lincoln Financial. Mostly, it was Lincoln Financial's employee parking lots, some buyer-beware used-car lots and auto repair places, and quite a lot of low-to-marginal quality housing, mostly rentals owned by absentee landlords. I took photos before and during site-clearing; when I find time, I'll get them up as part of a complete thread. The redevelopment includes public space, a ball park, a Courtyards by Marriott hotel and parking garage, and sixty-some condominiums with a ball-park view and street-level retail space. The condos are being grabbed up pre-construction pretty briskly; I think more than 40 have been spoken for already.
January 12, 200817 yr Nice. Thank's for the infor on the redevelopment plans 'cause I was going to have to ask.
January 12, 200817 yr I am loving that old GE plant and the sign. Do you have any other pics of it? I worked on the top floor of that building about 1985-1988, and got up on the roof a few times. I have lots of photos of the entire complex, enough for a full thread by itself when I find time to digitize them. That facility dates from the 1880s up through 1915 or thereabouts, although most of the original buildings burned around 1895. The plant covers several city blocks and is mostly inactive now, although I've heard that GE plans to invest in a major R&D center on the site. I've read that at its peak during WWII it employed about 5,000 people; when I started there as an apprentice machinist-toolmaker in 1958, about 3,000 people worked there. GE made specialty electric motors and power-distribution transformers at that site. Nice. Thank's for the infor on the redevelopment plans 'cause I was going to have to ask. Renderings and other info are here: http://www.cityoffortwayne.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1049&Itemid=1168
January 12, 200817 yr The Summit City. "The Fort". I spent three year's hard labor :sleep: at Magnavox on Lima Rd in 1984-87.
January 13, 200817 yr Am I crazy for loving Fort Wayne's tallest building? You're not alone in admiring it. I know other skyscraper enthusiasts, some from bigger cities, that really like it. It took a while, but it finall grew on me and now I'm an admirer. In certain kinds of light it's rather dramatic. It's so much taller than anything around it that it's sort of out of context in Fort Wayne, but I guess that helps it stand out and attract attention. The original design and renderings called for it to be sheathed in mirror tiles, but change orders and construction delays pushed things out so far that there was danger of missing the occupancy date required to lock in the financing rate, and the mirror tiles went by the wayside. The last time I looked, Emporis said it was a steel-framed structure. That's not right; it's poured-in-place reinforced concrete. Bunch more downtown photos here.
January 13, 200817 yr seems like they learned lessons from similar ballpark projects and improved upon them. that will be an excellent all-around development. it also makes me think the 'new' minor league parks near me like for the si yankees or brooklyn cyclones seem wasteful for not using the space better and incorporating a mix of development into/around them. sure they are sited well, but they are just stand alone ballparks.
January 13, 200817 yr In this case, the mixed use was what made it possible to fund what the redevelopment commission wanted in the first place -- an additional downtown hotel adjacent to and connected with the Grand Wayne Center, the convention center (the Grand Wayne is already attached to the Hilton). Hardball Capital, owners of the Wizards, were already lobbying for a new ball park to replace a dated one near the Coliseum, some distance from downtown, and they were willing to kick-start the project with a substantial investment. Barry Real Estate, of Atlanta, got involved in the condo/retail aspect, and White Lodging will build and operate the hotel, a Courtyards by Marriott. Initially the city had proposed a luxury hotel, but there were no bidders for that. I think a Courtyards is better suited to the Fort Wayne market, anyway. It's still an attractive, quality brand and pricewise it's more in line with what business travelers and other visitors to a city this size will want.
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