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CHANNEL DISTRICT | The Channel Club | 23 stories | 261 feet | 323 units | Publix grocery store | recently complete

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#1 · (Edited by Moderator)
The Channel Club
23 stories
261 feet
323 units
Publix Grocery Store
Site Prep





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Moderator's Note: The following 35 posts were originally in the "Channelside Development News" thread. Now that it appears the Martin is active again, it gets its own thread.

I received a "Good Neighbor Notice" in the mail concerning a Petition to Rezone 1105 / 1115 Twiggs St. from a CD-3 to a CD-2. I'm not sure of the difference between the zoning, but I think that this is in the location of the Martin. For proposed use of Land, the petition says "Regional mixed use residential, 650 apartment units". So, maybe the Martin is going to go forward in some form as apartments.
 
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#4 ·
I received a "Good Neighbor Notice" in the mail concerning a Petition to Rezone 1105 / 1115 Twiggs St. from a CD-3 to a CD-2. I'm not sure of the difference between the zoning, but I think that this is in the location of the Martin. For proposed use of Land, the petition says "Regional mixed use residential, 650 apartment units". So, maybe the Martin is going to go forward in some form as apartments.
Good News. Surprising though, because it looked like the developers were more in favor in building Del Villar than the Martin a while back.
 
#5 ·
I received a "Good Neighbor Notice" in the mail concerning a Petition to Rezone 1105 / 1115 Twiggs St. from a CD-3 to a CD-2. I'm not sure of the difference between the zoning, but I think that this is in the location of the Martin. For proposed use of Land, the petition says "Regional mixed use residential, 650 apartment units". So, maybe the Martin is going to go forward in some form as apartments.
Yes, the date of the public hearing is 12/11/08
If the date is still right the meeting is tomorrow. Hopefully we'll hear what happens...
 
#8 ·
I got a question about The Martin. With the original plan being for 322 units and the new plans being for 650. will we expect a change to design of the overall project or being that apartment units are normally smaller than condo units, will there be little change to it?
 
#9 · (Edited)
Okay, so I'm reading the City Council's transcript from the Dec. 11th 5 pm meeting right now. Finally found the discussion for The Martin. Extremely large report and very boring when reading. I'll put down things that I found interesting.

It seems with the change in units, Mercury Advisors have changed the whole design. I was confused on this because I didn't know if they considered the tower in the original plan one or two, but it's certainly 2 seperated towers they have now in their plan. This is about 32,000 square feet in between the two towers.

The project will be 24 stories tall, with 4 stories of parking. So I believe they have lowered the project because I believe the original plan was around 30 stories, am I correct?

Mary Mueler complained about Mercury Advisors knocking down the brick building halfway between Channelside Dr. and Meridian Ave. She said that she wished for the developers to have kept that there and made it into a loft. Whatever......

The three most discussed issues were; traffic, solid waste, and tree removal. The site has a 50% tree removal policy, or whatever they call it, and the developers want to have 95% of the trees remove. They didn't have a waiver for this, so nothing was done. They did say that they''l incorporate trees in a planned park with the project, which I don't think was planned in the original.

The traffic concern was both streets, Twiggs and Madison, at the intersection of Meridian. I was kinda confused what they were concerned about. I believe the developers wanted to change the time for the lights, espicially on Madison, so their residents could have more time to drive out. But it became more focused on the impact of traffic coming from the Crosstown.

The last was solid waste, on the location for the projects dumpster. The developers want to have the dumpster further inside the project area so it doesn't affect the park. But there was oppostion to that because they don't want the garbage man having to back up to retrieve the dumpster

So these three things has pushed the approval to January 8th at 10 am. The Solid Waste Management wasn't at the meeting, so thats basically the reason why it was pushed back.

OMG, that was too much reading.........

http://www.tampagov.net/appl_Cable_...tPrevPage=index.asp&txtNextPage=frmAgenda.asp (It starts at 18:56:04:03)
 
#12 · (Edited)
^Thanks for all of that. BTW, the project was originally 22 stories so they actually added two stories.

Edit- I went through parts of it, here's some stats:

The proposed development is for 650 units contained in two towers with a shared parking garage in the building podium. Design also includes 4,505-square-foot park with a total of 3,602 gross square feet of greenspace to the east of the building along Madison Street.
Maximum building height is 246 feet, 6 inches to the top of the roof and 261 feet to the top of the core tower. 650 parking spaces are required and 760 spaces are being provided. A total of 32% compact spaces are being incorporated
And also, a couple of notes added to the plan. The bonus features include artist studio gallery along Meridian, public open space on Madison, indoor/outdoor performance area, enhanced street design, increased sidewalk area and LEED design.
The whole Saul-Sena transportation disccussion with some broken record is hilarious. It's from 19:05:35:18 to 19:09:11:09.
 
#13 ·
^Thanks for all of that. BTW, the project was originally 22 stories so they actually added two stories.
really, that short? Damn

Yeah, but the only thing Mueller moaned about was the brick building. Everything she said was basically "I wish you could save it" or "why isn't it considered an historic structure?" :bash:
 
#17 ·
What is it with solid waste and dumpsters? I remember council spent like two hours one night beating it to death on a project in Hyde Park. I mean my complex has over 1000 units and ONE dumpster/compactor, the truck comes everyday to pull the dumpster, its not freakin rocket science. As a matter of fact when I live in DC my building had an insane number of units, and it was the same, one dumpster/compactor, and it was pulled everyday.

That and trees, just require them to plant "x" amount when done. Don't try to force keeping existing trees, just scrape and require mature specimens at completion. We aren't talking about 300 year old redwoods.
 
#20 ·
When selling a condo, you can never, ever have too much parking. Its a primary reason my wife and I didn't buy at 345 Bayshore. We could only afford a one bedroom, which would have been fine, but we needed two parking spaces. We are looking at buying in Viewpoint right now, and parking is based on size of unit, 1bed-1space, 2bed-2spaces. We can afford a two bedroom, but are considering spending another $35K for a third space, as it would be very valuable when we sell or when my child is old enough to own a car too.
 
#26 ·
No offense, but perhaps that means downtown living isn't right for you.

Have you considered that these lifestyle choices don't mesh with urban living?

Point out one urban environment where residents get two spots plus generous space for guests. You won't find it.

Living in San Francisco and now in Berkeley (decidedly less urban, but nonetheless...), I can vouch on top of academic experience that this is a naive perspective on urban living.
 
#25 ·
Am I high??!

Without being patronizing, do you know anything about parking requirements in dense and thriving urban environments? Let me tell you, they're certainly less - often, less than one spot per unit. If that bothers you - a real urban experience - then perhaps you aren't as "urban-minded" as you thought.

Precisely these sorts of requirements undermine notions of urbanity. Not only is it possible, but it is entirely feasible to enact much stricter parking restrictions. It is a cultural issue, I suspect, but that does not make it any less of an issue for us as Tampa residents. If they can overcome this issue in the Portlands of the US (the cities we, btw, fashion ourselves after - but only superficially), they can overcome it here.

Out here, at Berkeley - where I study Urban Design and Planning, this wouldn't fly. Under any circumstances. And this is not some liberal utopian vision for city building - it works.

This is a serious issue that needs to be confronted with a more extensive transit network and stricter design guidelines. You might think of it as commercial suicide for a developer, but I see it as the clear, logical and feasible step forward.

Let me repeat that - way too much parking
 
#27 ·
Let me finish by saying that, while I'd love for everyone to walk or use transit, I'm very much aware that may be a very distant vision for places like Tampa. That's fine. But I do not think it's appropriate to compromise the integrity of an urban environment by designing so heavily around the car. I think there are alternatives (and plenty of examples to learn from) - spaces outside of the urban center - where we can design up and maintain certain lifestyle needs. The center of the city is not the place for these compromises, however.
 
#28 · (Edited)
^In the future, please just edit and add what you need to instead of making 3 consecutive posts in the same thread in a span 6 minutes. :)

Ideally, of course, there would be no parking needed, but downtown Tampa will never mature if it discourages people going to it. Right now, the number one way to get there is by car unfortunatley. In the future it will be rail, and you'll be able to eliminate large parking structures. Transportation is the very backbone of the urban enviornment, if you don't have good transit (we don't) we won't have a strong urban core.

I think 1 spot per unit is quite reasonable anyway even if you don't like parking. Or to be more precise about 1.17 spots per unit, in the case of the Martin. Tampa is not New York City, Chicago, or San Fransisco and not many cities in the US are. But hey, the lack of good urban planning is one of the great problems with our country, and it needs to be fixed. I just don't think you can go from a car loving culture to designing cars out of American cities overnight and expect success.

That said, the ultimate goal in a more distant future is what you describe.
 
#29 ·
While I'm sure you feel very smart, studying urban planning in Berkeley, there's a real world out there and that world (at the moment) needs parking. It would be awesome if you didn't need a car in most parts of the country, but building a luxury apartment building in a car-driven area without parking will not make that happen. It will just mean charging less rent and having higher vacancy. In this chicken and egg problem it's the transit that comes first.

Developing is a business, not a homework project where you make your utopia.
 
#30 ·
Umm - you will not be able to eliminate large parking structures - almost no city does that - just many cities put them underground. The car will likely always be the largest means of transportation - but that should not stop other means.

Frankly, it depends where you are in SF. Most of the people I know park on the street - a bit of a pain, but not too bad. In other cities, driving is also very common. Not every city will be Manhattan. also - what is "urban" - it does not need to be 30 stories, it can be a 3 or 4, which still requires some parking on the street etc. but it is not super painful.
 
#31 ·
Last time I checked all societies were becoming more car dependant, not less. I can attest by what I just saw in Shanghai. Everyone I spoke to either had a car or wanted one. Ignoring reality is no way to plan. This is why political leaders are elected to keep the idealists in line.

And can urban planners guarantee that people will always have the same job in the same section of town. Because if you cannot, then dictating terms of how they live isn't exactly fair now is it. Over the course of ten years in Tampa, I lived in SoHo, but went to grad school at USF, then worked in Hyde Park and then worked in Tierra Verde. Such career instability is more and more common expecially in the US. Right now my wife works 2 mile from our apartment and I work about 15 miles. My job location doesn't facilitate mass transit and her hours don't for her job.

My point is you cannot design for the ideal planners urban world. Especially as the costs of car ownership continue to become more and more achievable for more people. So the 1.5 spaces per unit is a basic minimum you aren't going to see go away. If anything it ought to be closer to 1.8 - 2 per unit.

And FF mentioned "In the future it will be rail, and you'll be able to eliminate large parking structures". I wouldn't count on rail in today's economy, especially after all the stimulus and infrastructure funds improve all the roads. Afterall that is all there are current hard plans for and the Pres Elect wants "shovel ready" projects to fund. TBARTA, Hartline, PSTA have all been sitting on their collective asses, wasting time for years never finalizing anything.
 
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