Hipster Baristas add Booze and Bar, Invade Downtown

Snow!  Here's some cozy TGIF news for you.

Just before the holidays your Salem culture seismograph might have trembled a little when a pillar of the Broadway Coffeehouse announced his departure.

Jesse at the brand-new pour-over station, October 2010

Turns out he's not moving very far!

This is Jesse. He's heading up the coffee half of Archive. @JesseyHayes pic.twitter.com/DNjWFx9cae
— archivesalem (@archivesalem) December 3, 2013

The bar is going into one of the bays on the Liberty side of the McGilchrist building, whose renovation is due to wrap this next year.

McGilchrist Block in better times, circa early 1950s
Salem Library Historic Photos

And they're just as serious about the bar as they are about coffee.

Late night cocktail break. pic.twitter.com/ONZUYTRmH5
— archivesalem (@archivesalem) December 4, 2013

That's some real vermouth they got there!

It will be a great addition to the scene already set by Ventis, La Capitale, Amadeus, Maven, and the others.

What feels significant about this, though, is the way it could indicate a generational shift in downtown nightlife - not the 40 or 50-somethings, or even 30-somethings, but the 20-somethings.  Hopefully it will be additive, and not merely cannibalize business from other businesses.

It's also feels like a much more up-to-date retro nod, very different from the aesthetic and market demographic at the Brick or Copperjohn's, which are also in historic buildings, or the stripped-down basics at The Bureau, Santiam's new taphouse in the Reed.

Archive, of course, hasn't even opened yet, and drawing real conclusions is mighty premature.  Opening a restaurant is hard work and the outcome never certain.  But from here Archive, and indeed the whole Roth and McGilchrist block renovation, looks like the kind of thing that could represent a tipping point, something we appeal to in a decade as "the moment" in a narrative about when things started to change for real downtown.  (What do you think of it all?)

This is great news and it will be so very exciting to follow.

SATA Leads Urban Trails Work Day Near Sprague on Sunday

Is the permafrost going to thaw enough for trail work!?

Saturday Sunday you can join Salem Area Trail Alliance Board Member Beth Dayton for a trail work day on the urban trail system near Sprague High School!

Fun times, for sure

You may remember work on the Skyline Trail back in February, and it's time for more:

Please join the Salem Area Trail Alliance for a trail work event on Sunday, December 8, 2013, from 9:00 a.m. to noon. We will be working on the Skyline Trails, which is an urban network of trails near Sprague High School. The crew will be meeting at 9:00 a.m. at the first Sprague High School Parking Lot. As always, wear long sleeves, boots, and gloves.

They'll have tools and hot drinks also.

As a bonus, Pizza from the bike-friends at Straight from New York!

The generous owners of Straight from New York Pizza have offered to provide all volunteers with free pizza and soft drinks immediately after the work event at their South Salem location (2918 Commercial St. SE). Please bring a clean pair of shoes so we don’t dirty up the joint!

Roller Racing at Bike Peddler Starts Tonight - Also, Maps and Salem Building Ages!

It's cold!  At least there's some sun.

But if the chill's a bit much, you want to move the bike fun indoors, and maybe enjoy something more sociable even, Bike Peddler's got a solution.

Vintage Roller Racing with Mile-a-Minute Murphy

Roller racing starts tonight!

From the PeddlerBlog:

Roller races are back at the Bike Peddler.

These will be held every Wednesday, from December 4th, to January 25th (except December 25th and January 1st). Warm up starts at 5:30 PM and the first race starts at 6:00 PM.

Even if you have no desire to race, but would rather ride, feel free to come by and ride with your friends. Bring your bike, your helmet (if you feel like it) and some mad roller skills. There will be prizes for the weekly winners, culminating on January 29th with the Salem Roller Race Championships. Series points are awarded as follows; 1 point for racing, 5 points for the win and on down from there. The categories are Men’s, Women’s and Style. Please check our Events page more information and updates.

Fun, fun, fun!

Salem Building Ages at Salemis

Fun of a geekier sort is over at Salemis, where they've put together a neat map and story about of the ages of buildings in Salem.

Interactive and crowd-sourced map of building ages - Salemis

The database behind it can be updated fairly easily, and all you have to do is click on a building to submit a correction or comment.  It might, in fact, be possible to build it out with photos and other neat bells and whistles!  (This sort of DIY thing may in the end be more flexible and offer more possibility than the official City apps - see below for a clip on that.)

At the moment the light color indicates the oldest buildings, the dark the newest.  They've also created an animated gif that shows development on the periphery of the city - so be sure to check it out!

Help Plan Path System at McKay Community Park; Morningside Plan at Commission

I've been remiss in mentioning this, but the City's been planning improvements to McKay Community Park, and there will be a meeting Wednesday, December 4, at 6:30 p.m. in McKay High School Commons to review the concepts.

McKay Park off Lancaster

Just off Lancaster and I-5, and placed between Silverton Road and Sunnyview, and in the no-man's land on the border of County and City, this is a challenging part of town for biking and walking connectivity.

Bike and Walk Salem shows a series of low-traffic connections along an east-west route midway between Silverton Road and Sunnyview. (It's not clear whether this is envisioned as continuous; two gaps are shown, plus there's the interstate.)

At any rate, with the school, a connection through the park is pretty important.

Bike and Walk Salem shows path through park
generally aligned on Beverly, but with odd breaks -
a low-traffic alternative would be useful
between Silverton and Sunnyview

Right now the City has four alternatives posted to the project page. There's a light on Lancaster at Beverly, and so a path connection is logical there, but Bike and Walk Salem shows the connection veering north at Carolina.  Alternative 1 and 2 have connections at Beverly, the others have connections only at Carolina.

In the Neighborhood Associations and Newsbits this Week

If over the weekend you went into "The Bureau," the new taproom for Santiam Brewing in the Reed Opera House, you might have seen an enlargement of this photo!

Commercial Street looking north from about Bellevue, March 1941
(Salem Library Historic Photos - you can enlarge it over there!)

The "Salem Beer" Plant and sign, naturally enough, is the draw, but there's also the predecessor to Boise Cascade on the left, the old Water Plant on the right (just behind the X of the RR crossing sign), and on the near side of the bridge over Pringle Creek are two businesses, Acme Wrecking and GE Appliance.

Yup, the big sort

They're located exactly where the City proposes to build a new Police Station!

This stretch of Commercial street could definitely do with more business and activity near the sidewalk!

And did you see the maps of high-, medium-, and low-income neighborhoods in Salem over the weekend? Nothing probably very shocking, but they were still interesting.  (Maybe the paper will overlay each of them with a "third bridge Salem Alternative" alignment?)

Last week was quiet, but this week brings several meetings of neighborhood associations.

Monday, West Salem

December 2, 2013
7:00 P.M.
Roth’s West, Mezzanine
1130 Wallace Rd NW

Tonight the West Salem Neighborhood Association will discuss the bike park concept for Wallace Park!

Two Police Stations: Eugene's Car-Dependence and the Civic Center's Desolateness - updated

One of the problems - maybe the biggest problem - in the debate over the proposed police station and civic center is that the plan that's on the table really doesn't give you that much to get excited about.

Nearly the whole Civic Center Superblock looking west
from above Waterplace
Image: CB|Two

The City and architect team might have assembled something transformative, but even if you think the current proposal is exactly what the Police need, the rest of the changes to the Civic Center (not included the seismic retrofit around which there is consensus) are still more "meh" than "wow," incremental only.

The Eugene Side - A Flawed, Car-Dependent Site

But how is the Eugene side of the argument any better?  In fact, it's much, much worse!

The Eugene model is a discount solution that likely harbors long-term operational costs in a trade for short-term capital and bond savings.  Worse, it hinders rather than boosts "neighborhoods, livability, prosperity, and citizen involvement."

Between an interstate and a highway access road (a stroad)
the Eugene station is totally car-dependent

There's no neighborhood here that the new station is supporting, the car-dependent development is not very livable or walkable, the development takes private land off the tax rolls and reduces community prosperity, and even with a bus stop the peripheral site reduces access to police services for those who do not have a car.

City Council, December 2nd - Cue up Sunday Streets 2014!

On a not-so-busy Council agenda for Monday, there's some great news. Not only does the City recommend starting to plan now for Sunday Streets 2014, there's money left over, and it wasn't as costly as some had feared (though part of this is because it was smaller than the Portland events, whose budget had provided a baseline).

Lively Sunday afternoon!

Quiet Sunday afternoon

The staff recommendation and report contains a number of items to improve for next year, chief among them better managing the north-south cross-traffic on Front, Commercial, Liberty, High, Church, and Cottage; and earlier and bigger outreach and marketing.  There are several other fine and coarse adjustments, most of them not rocket science. Staff report that adjacent businesses that were open did have a bump in sales, so that'll hopefully spur more to stay open.

The only downside? Staff is recommending one only, again in September on the 7th. MOAR SUNDAY STREETS PLEASE!