Comments on: A suburban Subway on an urban street

By: Paul

Paul — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 21:38:03 +0000

Or how about allowing this to be developed? Strip malls in the city!

It looks like they are making guidelines without an attempt to even follow them,

By: Kevin

Kevin — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 18:16:59 +0000

I wish I could say that the situation was better in Indy, but there’s a new grocery store going up in my neighborhood that is being fronted by a parking lot. Fortunately they are also putting parking on the roof. Still, the street corner was just begging to have a quality building on it, and now it will be set back. A huge missed opportunity.

By: Downtown design guidelines: Never implemented? « the good city

Downtown design guidelines: Never implemented? « the good city — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 00:17:44 +0000

[...] 11, 2008 (Jon) While looking for information to bolster my previous post about the new downtown Subway restaurant, I came across the Fort Wayne Downtown Design Guidelines [...]

By: David Sucher

David Sucher — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 17:00:50 +0000

And as a planner once told me many many years ago: “Land is too cheap in America.”

Look at the size of that parking lot. Of course it’s hard to say from the photo, but it appears huge in relation to the building. I wonder what the parking ratio is is.

By: David Sucher

David Sucher — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 15:23:01 +0000

One point: It might be easier in local politics to remove the “build to the sidewalk” idea from the “design” box — which to some people sounds subjective like paint color etc etc — and put it in the simple “zoning” box

By: Adrian Fisher

Adrian Fisher — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 13:36:12 +0000

It may seem like a small thing to some, but as a downtown resident, I know having street access makes a big difference. Take the Starbucks on Jefferson and Fairfield. It even looks urban with that friendly front porch-thingy, but regardless of what direction from which one approaches, one must walk either across the parking lot, or the drive-thru to get in. It just makes one feel like she doesn’t belong.

By: Zachary Benedict

Zachary Benedict — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 12:18:33 +0000

These were never “officially” adopted were they?

By: Jon

Jon — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 12:11:23 +0000

So, Scott, what you're saying is these downtown Fort Wayne design guidelines were never implemented?

By: Scott Greider

Scott Greider — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 04:36:09 +0000

Jon,

The City doesn’t yet have enforceable design guidelines for any part of the city, including downtown. So there wasn’t really anything they could do, technically, at least. The only hope to stop this disaster would have been for the BZA to deny the developers request for a parking variance (they asked to wave the required 5′ buffer between the sidewalk and the front of the parking stalls). I attended that meeting, and literally pleaded with the board to deny the request. The developer said the project wouldn’t work without it. It could have been stopped, but alas… they approved the request.

In my mind, this is a double-disaster; not only did the city loose two great older buildings, but now we’re stuck with this tragedy for many years to come.

By: Michaelk

Michaelk — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 00:36:20 +0000

Fort Wayne still designs for cars first, people second.

Apparently it’s more important that people can easily get on and off the main streets to get through downtown more quickly.