Capitol Relocation
You might recall some preliminary talk about relocating the Capitol and Legislature for the duration of a seismic retrofit.
Recommendation 4: Vacate the Capitol temporarily! |
Yellow Lot is vacant real estate for expansion (Department of Revenue, like a fortress, in background!) |
From the Oregonian:
The Oregon Legislature will most likely relocate to the nearby Public Utility Commission building for three and a half years when the Capitol undergoes a renovation, legislative leaders said Thursday.The story was going to be about a reduction in parking on the mall and the need to shift some drive-alone trips to other modes, but now the story's emphasis might instead be the increased value of surface parking a little north and east of the Capitol.
The Oregon State Fair & Expo Center about a mile and a half north of the Capitol will serve as a backup option, said Senate President Peter Courtney, D-Salem.
Other options include converting the Kettle warehouse more than a mile south of the Capitol, and a phased, partial relocation between the Capitol and the PUC building.
Modest Four-Square demolished a couple of months ago |
Hopefully the move won't incent more demolition.
* There's an old rail time point here that goes by Lemrock. GPS coordinates suggest it is on Marion Street, just
Movement on Pringle Square's North Block
Just in, on Tuesday, June 17th the Planning Commission will hold a "class 3 design review" and "class 3 site plan review" for the first part of the North Block of the Boise Redevelopment Project.
Hearing for Phase two of six next month |
Four-story office building for the North Block of Pringle Square CB|Two |
Most important will be making sure that the walkway and path system in "phase three" is in fact executed promptly. If I have a complaint, it is that this is not phase two and this "north block" building phase three.
The nursing home, phase five, can wait!
(For all notes about the Boise project, see here.)
2 comments:
If my memory serves from previous posts, there is essentially no way to walk to this new building on the Boise site from downtown. Is that correct. In other words, is there a crosswalk at this corner?
Not so much "no way to walk" as much as "not as easy as it should be."
There are three crosswalks at this intersection: both n-s running x-walks along Commercial; and the northerly e-w running x-walk, the one between the Conference Center and Magoo's. Only one of these serves the corner of this new building.
The e-w x-walk between the Fire Station and the Boise site at this corner is closed because of dual turn lanes from Front onto Commercial.
I have thought that when the Boise site is built out, this might be an excellent candidate for a button-activated "scramble signal phase" that would stop auto traffic in all directions and let people on foot and on bike go through the intersection in any direction they like. That would then make the Riverfront-Conference Center connection finally solid.
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