Spokane to Moscow Rail - possible terminus

From: Peterson, Nils
Sent: Friday, October 09, 2009 11:55 AM
To: Scarfo, Bob
Subject: Rail connection between Spokane and Moscow

Bob,
I've been following some of your work to get the communities to imagine
a
rail link to Spokane.

I have begun exploring doing a development in Moscow's Legacy Crossing
in a
parcel that might be the terminus or just beyond the terminus of the
line
you are proposing. I have been posting various thoughts, including some
site analysis here
http://greenmoscow.blogspot.com/2009/09/developing-in-legacy-crossing.ht
ml

This is a note to explore if there is a conversation that you and your
students might want to have regarding your project and the site I'm
exploring

---
Scarfo replies
Nils, you're working on some very exciting stuff. I have forwarded your
email to the students working on the Moscow, ID rail station design.
Part of what they are doing is trying to determine a good location for a
potential station.
I told them to contact you and see about meeting and talking with you.

There has been so much interest in the idea of reintroducing passenger
rail that I have been poking around trying to find some funding for a
one-day working session with a broad a group of people as possible. I'd
like to see us walk away for such a meeting with a strong strategy of
how to incrementally move for where we are today to a point in time when
passenger rail is an integral part of the Palouse, eastern WA and
western ID regions.

When I get this meeting established I will definitely let you know so
you can participate.

Thanks so much for reaching out to me.
Bob

Legacy Crossing Land Cost Analysis

I did some photography looking at the site, and started thinking about the visual impact and potential of building massing, but concluded that I need to work more on the business model first.

One issue to understand is the contribution of the land cost to the project costs. The variables I have thought about considering are:

• Net usable site (after dedicating land for the Almon St extension ROW
• Net buildable site (after further deducting space inevitably lost to external circulation)
• Gross Built space, after allowing for required parking. Parking could be under the building (at the cost of ground floor space and higher construction costs), but I don't know how to assess this yet.
  
• Number of floors. The Overlay zone says minimum height 2 stories, and seems to say maximum height of 5 stories (but might be leaving open greater height with setbacks on upper stories)

Below is the spreadsheet I made with these variables. The Overlay Zone sets out the parking requirements, but its hard to estimate the parking without more detail of the program, so I took a guess.

What I see is that it takes quite intense development to get the land cost down below $10/sqft.

There are a couple commercial properties for sale in Moscow CBD right now with asking prices of about $100/sqft (land + structure). Construction costs run well over $90/sqft so there is something I'm missing or this land is greatly overpriced.

Site size (sqft)	184020
Net after ROW (sqft)	134014
Assumed Useable Footprint	90%
Net Footprint (sqft)	120613
Lost to public circulation	13401
Gross Built Footprint (not lost to parking)	60%
Numb Floors	4
Gross Built Space (SqFt)	361839
Land Cost	$3,000,000
Land Cost/sqft built	$10.36

Developing in Legacy Crossing

Last spring I posted some thoughts on alternative ways to develop in Moscow's Legacy Crossing area. I continue to mull those ideas over and have taken a few minutes to explore with my banker and Moscow Community Development the south-western parcel. The image (click to enlarge) has two colors of site boundaries, red the recorded property lines and yellow the ideas of Moscow Community Development for street alignments.

The parcel has a long creek frontage (actual creek ROW is owned by University of Idaho. Its access is on the skinny end (NW) along College street. The proposed street would provide access along most of the long north-eastern side. The FEMA flood plain map 1600900002 shows this parcel is above the 100 year flood, were areas just to the North and NW are in the flood plain.

Moscow is in the process of updating its Comprehensive Plan and Chapter 5, Public Utilities, has two maps of interest. The first shows storm water constraints along 6th st, but not in the area of the parcel.

The second shows sanitary sewer constraints


The question arising in the sewer map is what route might the City choose for improving the sanitary sewer capacity? I need to learn the current alignment of the sewers in this area, but given that the site has historically (100 years) been railroad and grain elevators its unlikely that the current alignment lies in this area. However, a future alignment down the proposed street is a possibility.

Moscow Valley Transit provides fixed route service passing the site on 8th and south of the site in Sweet Ave.

"The city earned an Idaho Rural Community Development Block Grant to extend fiber optic connectivity into Alturas Technology Park. The Moscow Fiber Project creates a citywide fiber optic network, using as a nucleus the existing Avista fiber network, which serves many public entities including the city, Moscow School District, Gritman Medical Center, Alturas Technology Park, University of Idaho, Latah County, State of Idaho and potentially many other entities both public and private." http://www.matr.net/article-26796.html This network must pass close to the site as Gritman is to the north and the new fiber was laid along the bike path beginning to the east of Main St on the south side of the creek. The Business Incubator south of the site on Sweet Ave also has high speed network access, probably provided from University of Idaho.

Legacy Crossing Thoughts

Previously I've posted on the Legacy Crossing model that was created by Nels Reece's students and an interesting green architectural firm, Mithun, and how their ideas might apply to Legacy Crossing.

The thing that I keep getting stuck on in Nels' students' work in the buildings as islands that they created. I look at downtown and see continuous urban form. Recently I visited Federal Hill and Otterbien districts in Baltimore and Mission Valley in San Diego and created this slide show with a different vision for the Legacy Crossing area. I'm not proposing either Federalist or Mission styles, but rather the continuous forms, and the interweaving of multiple scales, uses and textures.

With the favorable E-W orientation of the site there is green potential for daylighting, solar PV, or solar hot water. The large roof area suggests looking at Mithun ideas for rain water capture and reuse.

Scoring Moscow's Walkability

I just found Walkscore, a tool that uses Google maps and data to calculate a walkability score for a street address. You need to put in a complete address, eg, 900 Travois Way, Moscow, Idaho and then it looks at the kinds of services around you and the distances and calculates a score.

Imagine if this were part of the process included in the SmartGrowth scorecard. Take a measurement from the center of the proposed development and score the walkability. (I went Googling for Idaho Smart Growth because I know their scorecard and found that the US EPA has a more extensive Smart Growth Scorecard site.)

The other day I pointed to Green Chain Stores and highlighted a quote about the problem driving to a green store and suggested a vision for greening Moscow. Add this tool to the list of thinking for that greener city. Probably need to fold in a more complex analysis for bike-ability -- distance is a little less important, but gradients matter and amenities along the way and at the destination (eg good paths and parking) matter.

Mithun - ideas for Legacy Crossing

I attended a good lecture yesterday by Bert Gregory from Mithun of Seattle. It was interesting to see the work they have done (conceptual and planning) for revitalizing urban areas in Portland and Seattle and at the same time making them resource efficient. On their website (which does not make it easy to link in) look at the expertise section/ urban planning and the Lloyd center project. I also found a south Lake Union/ Seattle Center project that he talked about, but can't find it again.

It would be worth looking at this more closely as an inspiration for our Legacy Crossing area.

The WSU blurb on the talk read

As President and CEO of Mithun, Bert Gregory has led the 220-person firm to national recognition for concept-based, environmentally intelligent design. He is renowned as an expert in the development of resource-efficient structures and communities, and serves as a national leader, speaker and advocate for sustainable building and urbanism. His perspective reaches beyond traditional architecture to merge science and design – an interdisciplinary approach that creates lasting places for people. With Mithun’s expansion in 2008 to a second office in San Francisco, Gregory strives to expand the reach of the firm to inspire a sustainable world through integrated design. Awards include four AIA COTE Top Ten Green Projects, two ASLA national honor awards, and the AIA national honor award for regional and urban design. Gregory serves as Vice-Chair of the USGBC LEED® Neighborhood Development core committee, and the Washington Clean Technology Alliance steering committee.

This presentation is co-sponsored by the Institute for Sustainable Design, the Office of Research, and the Center for Environmental Research, Education and Outreach.

DATE: Friday, September 5, 2008
TIME: 11:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m.
PLACE: Compton Union Building, Butch’s Den

Bike Boluvards and New Moscow Comp Plan

I was describing my disappointment with the Mobility chapter of the new Comp Plan to a bicycle enthusiast this AM. It turns out that, based on 2000 Census, Moscow is in the top 1% of cities in terms of bike/walk to work.

I was saying that we have this elaborate scheme for classifying arterials, collectors and local streets, which is all about auto use, and we need some 21st century language rather than bringing assumptions from the past. (See previous Bicycle City post for more vision.)

He mentioned Palo Alto Bicycle Boulevard http://www.techtransfer.berkeley.edu/newsletter/99-4/bicycles.php concept.

Very cool idea and fairly simple set of requirements. P&Z had a good conversation last night about shifting the focus of the Mobility chapter to put the ‘alternative’ modes more on par with the vehicular mode and reduce the implicit bias of the document. Its going to Transportation now with P&Z comments.

Phillip Cook supplied these additional links.
From the Bicycle Transportation Alliance (Oregon’s large bike advocacy organization):
http://www.bta4bikes.org/at_work/bikeboulevards.php

From Portland Department of Transportation:
Clinton Street Bike Boulevard project
http://www.portlandonline.com/transportation/index.cfm?c=46371
Portland Bicycle Master Plan
http://www.portlandonline.com/TRANSPORTATION/index.cfm?a=71843&c=34812

From Berkeley CA Office of Transportation
http://www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/transportation/bicycling/bb/BicycleBoulevard.html

From Streetfilms (out of NY) about bike boulevards in Berkeley CA:
http://www.streetfilms.org/archives/berkeley-bike-boulevards/