Second Site Study

I appreciate the feedback from several of you on my first site study. @Al thought that the cars were dominating the middle and that a green space should be the center and parking put to the side. @Phil suggested I try podium parking (ground level parking tucked under the buildings) @Bill suggested I look at more of the context around the site and not have such a weak corner (eg parking lot) near the cul-de-sac. I also learned a bit more about firetruck requirements. The trucks like to pull through without backing up, but can use a 'hammerhead' to turn around. Pulling through means going off the site, so I have not explored that yet.

The first plan was trying to explore the idea of a surface parking lot that could later be a parking structure. These plans abandon the idea of ever having a parking structure.

Community green space between rows of dwellings.

Here are two new versions. One I'm calling the Long Alley because it puts an alley with garages behind all the townhouses. The other I'm calling Interior Court because it has a courtyard for two rows of townhouses.  Interior court was inspired by this image of the Berea EcoVillage.

Long Alley

 Long Alley still has the problem that the center of the site is devoted to the car. It does address the 'weak corner' at the cul-de-sac and it makes lots of use of pedestal parking to avoid most of the parking lot. I'm not to wild about this, it looks like a row of little boxes and a warren of little roads.


Interior Court

Interior Court has several garden areas, but it might not work for fire access -- one alley requires backing out 150 feet. It also requires some cooperation with the northern neighbor to make a shared alley on the property line, but the neighbor may want to cooperate to better access the eastern portion of their property (across the view shed). This plan is probably short of parking, esp for the building at the cul-de-sac.

First parking lot and building site study

For several reasons I am focusing SODO Moscow on the southern portion of the "South Block" (blue outline).

• Its a smaller chunk to finance
• Moscow's Intermodal Transit Center is considering the northern portion of the site. (reportedly the site is priority 3)

Here is the site, in the larger city context. (Original drawing by Bill Belknap exploring how existing property lines would need to be shifted to add street rights of way. This boundary change has not been agreed among the owners 12.29.2010)

Within the southern portion, this is my first study of parking lot and building footprints. Several questions and issues have become aperant.

• The 530 foot dimension needs to be shortened to contribute half to making of a public path. (need to see the design overlay for path width)
• The creek side needs a pedestrian path. 10 feet setback from the property line is shown for this purpose. 
• Can an easement with UI help widen this path?
• How will fire access work along this side?
• The eastern face is built to the property line. Fire access is assumed in the right of way along the old Main St alignment.
• The northern side shows a 15 foot pedestrian path - otherwise build to property line would close off all pedestrian access in an E-W route.

First sketch 12.29.2010 includes:

• 19 row houses (ave width 22 feet, depth 45 feet)
• one parking stall for each row house (either in garage or in alley)
• 44 stall parking lot interior to the block (at grade). Need to explore converting this space to structured parking.
• 4 building sites: 7000, 6700, 2900 and ?? sqft footprints.
• A 10x24 foot loading dock off the end of the alley.
• Two mid-block passageways 10 feet wide.

Flood, Stormwater and Sewer Considerations

The site is promising because according to the FEMA flood map 1600900002d it is out of the flood plain except at the NW corner. Present attention is around development on the SE half, which is completely out of the flood plain.

Moscow's 2009 Comprehensive Plan (Chap 5 Map 5.1) identifies constraints in its storm water system for other parts of downtown, but not in the vicinity of the site. This is probably because there is no storm water system on or adjacent to the site. This is one of the utilities that the URA might become involved in developing.

There is presently no sewer on the site. Moscow's 2009 Comprehensive Plan (Chap 5, map 5.4) identifies that there may be constraints in sewer capacity in the vicinity of the site. This is one of the utilities that the URA might become involved in developing.

A Timeline of SODO activities in Nov-Dec 2010

Until I come up with a way to log my discussions and next steps that is more interactive I'm going to capture what I can still remember here.

Nov 10. Toured the Stubbs Seed facility (Hwy 8 & 95) with Shelley Bennett (agent for the Legacy parcel) to understand a comparable property in the vicinity of the Legacy site.

Nov 15. Visit with students in Wendy McClure's architecture class. Their project involves the super block along 6th avenue. Students presented this work to the URA Dec 8.

Nov 17. Coffee with Rick Bebee, former owner of the parcel I'm exploring developing. Need to follow up with Gerard Billington, UI.

Nov 19. Tried to have impromptu meeting with Gary Reidner, but he was busy. Dropped in on Bill Beklnap instead. Bill provided a sketch he created to explore how the current ownership lines might be adjusted to accommodate the public right of way for Almon St and Main St extensions.

Dec 7. Lunch with Mark Mumford. Discussed the need for 50-somethings to have a place to bring aging parents that is a less restrictive environment than Bishop Place or Good Sam. This has implications for "mother in law" apartments and/or wheelchair ready flats.

Dec 7. Emailed with Gerri Saylor about My Own Home. Follow up after the New Year.

Dec 8. Attended presentation by Wendy McClure's architecture students to URA regarding development at 6th and Jackson and more generally the whole superblock to the west-south of that corner. Some of the designs captured the urban character that the City is seeking in the Legacy Crossing Overlay Zone design guidelines.

Dec 9. Meeting with Gary Reidner (Moscow City Managere) and Jeff Jones (URA and Moscow Econ Development). Discussed the project generally and how the City and URA might be involved, including Brownfields assessment and Inter-modal Transit facility.

Dec 9. Later in the day meeting with Laurence Rose, Design West. Learned that the NW end of the property I'm exploring in one of the top 3 sites being explored for Moscow's Inter-modal Transit facility.

Dec 9. Lunch meeting with Phil Waite, WSU Landscape Architecture. Phil gave me several books to read.

Dec 13. Pat Vaughan (County Assessor) emailed a spreadsheet listing all residential property in Moscow: year built, address, and residence type.  I produced this analysis to explore the age distribution of existing residences. The implication is that a residential zoning decision is likely to have an impact on the city land use that lasts more than 50 years.

Dec 14. Meeting with Karen Lewis (Moscow Realty) to learn about market for townhouses. Karen provided some sales data for townhouses (closest thing Moscow has to a row house). Karen suggests that I "need a web page" for the project. I confirm that she is advising that I work the problem in public.

Dec 16. Lunch with Dan Rathmann (retired engineer) to explore his thinking about the Dumas facility on A street and to share what I know about the Legacy Crossing site. Dan is father of Kurt the strawbale guy (and architect) currently doing design-build in Spokane.

Dec 17. Meeting with Aimee Shipman (LEDC), who pointed me to a couple articles about college towns doing town-gown-retiree developments to attract alumni and retiring boomers.

Dec 20. Posted Huffington Post article on adult children living with parents. This has implications for design of spaces to support 2nd unit for live-in family member.

Dec 21. Meeting with Shelley Bennett to explore her thoughts about working the project in public. Shelley points to the successful use of the strategy at Eastside Marketplace (public input needs analysis), and more recently by the Anderson Group for the grain facility at 6th & Jackson. Shelley mentioned another project that is failing to get off the ground and is not taking her advice to build momentum in public. I asked Shelley to alert to owner of the Legacy parcel that I would have a public strategy up by New Years.

Dec 23. Launched SODO blog and Facebook group, see previous post.

List of next steps:
UI people to meet. Goal, learn more about how UI would be a neighbor/ partner

• Gerard Billington - suggested my several people including Bebee & Billington
• Ray Pankoff - suggested by Phil Waite
• Steve Drown - suggested by Phil Waite (also on URA)
• UI Comprehensive Plan

 Finance People to meet. Goal, learn more about how the money works

• Lee Gibbs - Zions Bank - recommended by several. Zions financed the URA purchase of 6th & Jackson
• Craig Knott - US Bank

Go Nano. Goal, learn more about their space needs when they want to move from the business incubator.

• Tim Kinkeade - CEO. talked 12/28.

Get list of membership of URA. Find what other connections these people have.

Update financial analysis spreadsheet and explore how to apply what I learned from Shelley about Capitalization rate: Rent / CapRate = Sales price

Look for images and start some image sharing in SODO FB group started 12/29

Get a better site drawing and develop some questions about parking and access along creek side. First version done.

South of Downtown Moscow

We all travel through it, the area between Moscow's downtown and the UI campus. Regardless of your reaction to the grain elevators being removed, now the area is an eyesore that needs to become something new. There is a parcel for sale that I've been thinking about for awhile. Now, I'm asking for your help envisioning and developing it.

I'm exploring ideas for a mix of commercial and residential. A few apartments, but mostly owned residences. Some row houses along the creek. Some flats, perhaps wheelchair ready. Some commercial office space, maybe with residences above. Not much retail, because its not well situated to compete with retail downtown. Perhaps a sandwich shop catering to the local lunch trade. Perhaps UI would have some 'edge of campus' uses that benefit from easier parking and public access.

It has a great solar potential, so I'm imagining energy efficient designs, perhaps near 100% solar for heating and hot water in the residences. (Explore SODO's 'sustainability' ideas.)

I'm imagining the creek side of the site as a promenade without cars, and walking routes to campus and downtown.

What do you think? What should be here?