Opportunities

Have you ever heard of the book "Harold and the purple crayon" ? It's a book about a child, Harold, who has the ability to create his own reality simply by drawing it with his magic purple crayon. He wants to see the moon - he draws it. He wants a bed - he draws it. It goes on... As a dreamer, an optimist, I've often wished I had Harold's purple crayon for myself. Unfortunately, in the real world, the color that makes dreams come true is not purple, but green - the color of money. I've got big dreams for Albany, but without my purple crayon, I wonder if any will come true. This blog entry is about one of those fantastic dreams. I'll just call it the Musical Chairs plan.

"Problems" - AKA opportunities.

1. The Washington ave. YMCA is operating at a significant loss. It;s no secret that the building has been neglected for years as the YMCA tries to balance the budget by other means. The concept of renovating the building seems like a band-aid on an artery wound. If we are to believe YMCA Chairman David Brown's assessment of the situation there is a solution but that solution requires a combination of three scenarios to keep the Y open. 1. A new, smaller, more energy efficient building. 2. More parking. 3. More members. Brown's plan is to gather members now, build finances, then address numbers #1 and #2 or rehab if possible. I don't think parking is really that big a deal, but if his claim that the building is the most significant obstacle in attracting new members and operating in the black, ok, you got me. The Y needs a new building, but where?

2. The former Adult Learning Center, also the former Albany High School, 25 Western Ave, is up for sale The seller would like a half million dollars for it, and from what I have heard it would take couple million to redo the HVAC and plumbing so SUNYA is not interested. at the time of this post there's a "sale pending" for the building. Let's hope it's not being bought to tear down.

3. This central ave. building is ugly. It's between Lark and Henry Johnson. There's an underutilized side-lot where a building used to be. I've heard the property is "unsellable" because it used to be a car dealership - no electric, no plumbing, no trimmings. An expensive rehab. Expensive to tear down.
If you think the front of the building is unattractive, check out the back.

Would you want to look at this place from your Sherman street home? Hell, no. Underutilized is right. Not only does it sit in ruin, it infects the value of the buildings around it.

4. There's a big, ugly parking lot right Central / Washington ave from the building above. Here's a picture.
At least it's used... right? But let's be honest, it looks like a crater in an otherwise beautiful stretch of occupied buildings. You may even argue that the lot helps the neighboring businesses. I don't think so. Cars are parked three deep. These are not shoppers. They are downtown workers, parking for the day. This lot is nearly empty at night. Only folks in it are likely residents.

5. The Main branch if the Albany Public Library is awful. This building was never intended to be used as a library and it shows. The space is not inviting. The layout is a challenge. The building looks, and feels, tired. The library is outdated. The capital of New York deserves better. Now, I'm not saying we need a library like Salt Lake City. The SLC place cost $65 MILLION to construct. I've been there - it's worth every penny, but I highly doubt we could pull that off. Still, I think we need a flagship building.

These are opportunities. Really. It would take some real driving, creative people and perhaps a boatload of cash, but here's my purple crayon idea.

SOLUTIONS - aka miracles

Step one

Construct a multi-story parking garage in the framework and adjacent to the "ugly" building on Central. The entrance and exit should be in the back. The first story of the front should contain two store fronts.

The facade should be wrapped. My guess is it would require a vehicle elevator and an attendant to manage. I whipped up the above image in ten minutes. Obviously the rennovation would be clean and more attractive, but this is knida what we're going for in principle - a building. The garage should free up the lot across the street for...

Step two

... a new, sparking, energy efficient YMCA. Smaller footprint, perhaps. it may even retain a handful of spaces for the handicapped. YMCA members that need to use the garage get a discount on parking in the garage across the street with validation or a voucher.

Step Three

The Albany library buys the former Adult Learning Center and renovates it for the purposes of a modern, but contextually appropriate building. If space permits then SUNYA could own a collection/room in the building for their purposes.

Step Four

The library sells the former building and it's renovated into Class A office space - something the city desperately needs. Sale of the former building could offset the cost of renovation of the school.

How?

I would imagine it would take a miracle to negotiate this. I think the ALDC, Library, YMCA, taxpayers, Central BID, and neighborhood associations would have to form a perfect working relationship to pull this off. What do we do with the former YMCA? There's a question I don't have a suggestion for... yet.

Give me your ideas. Tell me why this would never work. Give me $100 million dollars to make this happen.

Density for sustainability

I won't steal the post from Streetsblog, and why bother? You click on the link, you'll ge the story.

http://www.streetsblog.org/2009/12/09/a-message-from-copenhagen-climate-plan-must-include-walkable-urbanism/

"At a panel discussion yesterday at the Copenhagen climate summit, American policymakers and transit experts delivered a clear message: Walkable urban development must be part of any effective plan to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions...."

Walkscore.com

What's the walkability of your neighborhood? Ever wanted to know? Well, now you can. Check out Walkscore.com it's a neat website with more than just the "what's my score" hook.

"How does that score work?" you ask.

"Walk Score uses a patent-pending system to measure the walkability of an address. The Walk Score algorithm awards points based on the distance to the closest amenity in each category. If the closest amenity in a category is within .25 miles (or .4 km), we assign the maximum number of points. The number of points declines as the distance approaches 1 mile (or 1.6 km)—no points are awarded for amenities further than 1 mile. Each category is weighted equally and the points are summed and normalized to yield a score from 0–100. The number of nearby amenities is the leading predictor of whether people walk."

What's the scoring mean?

• 90–100 = Walkers' Paradise: Most errands can be accomplished on foot and many people get by without owning a car.
• 70–89 = Very Walkable: It's possible to get by without owning a car.
• 50–69 = Somewhat Walkable: Some stores and amenities are within walking distance, but many everyday trips still require a bike, public transportation, or car.
• 25–49 = Car-Dependent: Only a few destinations are within easy walking range. For most errands, driving or public transportation is a must.
• 0–24 = Car-Dependent (Driving Only): Virtually no neighborhood destinations within walking range. You can walk from your house to your car!

Sounds simple enough - but there are several factors that do not account into the Walkscore

"We'll be the first to admit that Walk Score is just an approximation of walkability. There are a number of factors that contribute to walkability that are not part of our algorithm:

• Street width and block length: Narrow streets slow down traffic. Short blocks provide more routes to the same destination and make it easier to take a direct route.
• Street design: Sidewalks and safe crossings are essential to walkability. Appropriate automobile speeds, trees, and other features also help.
• Safety from crime and crashes: How much crime is in the neighborhood? How many traffic accidents are there? Are streets well-lit?
• Pedestrian-friendly community design: Are buildings close to the sidewalk with parking in back? Are destinations clustered together?
• Topography: Hills can make walking difficult, especially if you're carrying groceries.
• Freeways and bodies of water: Freeways can divide neighborhoods. Swimming is harder than walking.
• Weather: In some places it's just too hot or cold to walk regularly

These are some pretty big shortcomings if you ask me. the system is heavily skewed towards urban areas so you've got to keep in mind that there are some issues presented by the calculations.

For example : Compare the walkability of San Fransisco's worst neighborhood with that of Altamont NY. Sure, San Fran is a wonderful place, but chances are that even at it's worst, San Franciscans have more businesses and civic institutions to bolster their score - never mind that in this comparison the SF neighborhood may be a crime have, have steep hills, and the sidewalks my be in rough shape - meanwhile, for it's low score, Altamont has excellent sidewalks, is crime-free, and has a few "find anything you want" general stores to satisfy.

Walkscore is lacking in the latest mass transit info. for example - I 'Walkscored' my address, XXX Myrtle Avenue, and I got an 85. It's worth noting that there are several bus lines within a short walk of my house, but Walkscore does not have CDTA data. It's scoring me without access to mass transit. I get a "very walkable" 85, but it could be lots better!!

Walkscore uses a fuzzy logic for some businesses. Many of those near me are gone, and some Walkscore attractions aren't categorized right. Consider this

• "bookstore" - Walkscore found a long closed comic book shop
• "park" - Walkscore found something called "e park" I have no idea what this is. It's accross the street from Washington park (not identified) so i can only assume it's an apartment building
• "fitness" - Suzy-Yoga Studio came up - this place closed in 2007
• "Drug store" - Albany College of Pharmacy came up. Think I can get a prescription there?
• "Library" - Albany College of Pharmacy came up again.
• "Hardware store" - Alternative Storage came up. This is not a hardware store. I live a block away. This place does not even exist.

The philosophy is there, but not the execution. The Walkscore leaves a lot to be desired when you really get into it, but it's a fun exercise and it may someday- coupled with the rapidly budding tech of Google Streetview, geocoding addresses, and real time mapping GPS software -become a very useful, and accurate tool. I think right now this thing is akin to the steam age of the car. Sure, we get a kind of "wow" effect, but who wants to go 2mph, have to constantly load wood into the boiler, and risk third degree burns to go 400 feet down a bridle path?

Maybe I'll dive into walkscore more see what else it can do, but for now I'm filing it under the 'cool but useless' category.

Traditional neighborhood design, active lifestyles - saving lives and money

My Grandparents had spent most of their lives in the home they bought shortly after being married in 1942. Both had active lifestyles that included loads of walking, tennis, and golf. My grandfather's large garden supplied fresh veggies nearly year round. The neighborhood they lived in, Newton Upper Falls, MA, has sidewalks on every street, many small businesses and parks, mass transit nearby, and has a great deal of mixed use development in the old mills that have since been redeveloped. Although both of my grandparents had cars, walking was the way they got to church, the market, and to see neighbors. My grandfather suffered a debilitating stroke in 2006 and passed away in 2008. amazingly, thanks to health and my aunt who had a flexible work schedule, he was able to be taken care of at home until his final days.

My grandmother was diagnosed with Alzheimer's last year, and the effects of the disease are heartbreaking. Her short term memory is lacking, she needs routine and notes to get through the day, and she's confused by new surroundings. She's likely one of the most good-spirited people you'll ever meet, so the confusion and forgetfulness is met with smiles instead of panic. Still, it hurts to see her struggle.

My grandmother walks for 30-45 minutes each day around her neighborhood, taking longer walks one weekends when accompanied. She's 89, but is sprightly and confident. If it weren't for her memory there is no doubt in my mind she wouldn't be 100% self-dependant.

I was amazed with the updates I've gotten from her neurologist. Her walks, and the layout of her neighborhood are saving her life. Really. It's kind of eerie, considering my profession (an (advocate for multi-use trails) and passion (traditional neighborhood design).

Granted there are a few things that luck has more to do with than lifestyle: My grandparents decided to live in the same house for 60+ years, small lots in Newton have prevented rampant tear-downs prevalent in neighboring towns, and my aunt is able to stop in frequently to lend a hand. But consider because the neighborhood hasn't changed much and because it was designed in such a manner that an elderly person can safely make their way around on their own - the environment is a major positive influence on her mobility - keeping her fit, eating, and happy. Quality of life in it's essence.

Alzheimer's robs people of the ability to differentiate between a recent and an older memory. Short term memory loss is prevalent. We half joke that if my grandmother's brain misfires on where the coffee mugs are, or where the church is, and "thinks" it's 1967 - it doesn't matter - the church, the mugs, the street with the barber shop - they're still the same, basically.

Should she become disoriented, there are familiar places, and people, there to guide her. She's not a prisoner in her own home - and she can continue to live at home, with relative Independence, where in other cases, and the neurologist backs me on this one, she may be better off in a nursing home. Really - if not for where she lives, and her exercise, she would be in a nursing home. Want to know how much a nursing home costs? $6,000 a month. Persons suffering from advanced Alzheimer's can look forward (or not) to shelling out $11,000 a month. When the health insurance benefits run out, you go on medicaid. To help pay the bills - the Gov't takes your estate. Think about that for a while. She's suffering, confused, the house is gone, descendants struggling, and the wealth she set aside to distribute among her loved ones is gone. Scary stuff, and a hardship for families everywhere.

So my pitch, like the broken record I seem to spin - design neighborhoods for all types of transportation, but walking most of all. Build sidewalks. Build dense. Build small. Think about who will be living there in 60 years. Think about how we can encourage physical activity and sense of place. We literally could lose our minds over choosing not to.

Conventional

We've known for ohhhhh maybe a decade, that the city of Albany is dead set on building a convention center. A convention center authority was established from capital region who's who's. A site was selected. Then... little moved as prices fluctuated, the economy tanked, and the state sunk into near-bankruptcy.

The latest news on the block is that the center is still a go - and a final design has been released (see renderings). There are several people in Albany who will tell you we have no need for a convention center - that the city is jumping on a ten year old bandwagon that's since died off, and with close to 1,000 vacant buildings in the city this project is a huge waste of money.

I agree... to an extent. I just don't know how much 'revitalizing' this $200 million project will do. I don't think it will create 800 jobs. I have a hard time believing, in the economy of 2010 - 2020 that conventions will really be profitable ventures. That's obviously a huge amount of speculation, but I do know we've got to compete with a number of bigger, more attractive cities for hosting conventions. The question: if we build it, will the come? I'm not qualified to say, but my gut says $200 million is a AWFUL lot of cash to gamble with if the deck is stacked against you and there are better odds at another table (IE. putting the money towards reviving downtown housing, reconnecting the city to the waterfront, or building a dense mixed use community in the 'ol Harriman campus ourselves and leaving developers out in the cold who won't build what we really need.)

So, I wonder... but I AM conflicted. Remember.... I think parking garages have potential... I'm a pie-in-the-sky optimist idealist dreamer. I see a silver lining, and i think you can polish a turd (easy if you freeze it). BTW polish is the only word I know that has different meanings, but the same spelling, and utilizes a capital letter only one of those uses. Polish. polish... oops.. I'm off subject...

OK, back to turds. You can polish a turd. Check out the design again - it's really attractive! It backs up to the expressway. Its being constructed on what I refer to as the ground zero of Albany. The building has a massive, open, grand entrance with an opera house kind of feel. It reminds me a little of SUNYA with all those archways. It's curving facade almost beckons you to walk in. The public space in front seems inviting. The parking garage in back is hidden. The building, while large, doesn't appear to belittle adjacent structures. It fills a unique site in a unique way. I like it. The rendering here is a view looking west, from Broadway. The street to the right is Hudson Ave. The tree-lined street appers to created from the parking lot currently between 4 and 6 E-Comm Square. The bus station goes kablooey as does "36 and "40" Hudson.

Let's look at an overview of the site, shall we? I have an aerial of the study area (not everything in white is knocked down, FYI. The center will fit in on the lower right of the aerial) to illustrate the gigantic hole in the center of the city. I urge people to go down to Division St, Green St., Dallius St, Liberty St., and Hamilton St. Look around. Would you ever want to come back here? What's the surrounding area for? It's a parking lot. (Go read my diatribe on parking lots.. go ahead.. I'll wait). Gonna have parking? Gonna save cash and build out instead of up? Look around. This areas is a shit hole. There's no other description for it. Really. It's a shit hole.

If you're going to do anything, anything at all that makes this section of the city more attractive, I'm with you. The Convention Center will improve the value of this area one-hundred-fold. It will cease to be a dead zone in the city, and if we're really lucky, it will be an economic superpower. That kind if impact is better left for economic developers and numbers guys. From a 'half-assed I got my planning degree and I can tell you what's what' point of view, on the view, I like the Convention center idea for the sole reason it will eliminate the wasteland of what could be called the worst place in the city.

I still wonder what will happen to the bus station? I'll have to address that in a later post ;) I better get back to work!

Stinky stuff

The Capital District Regional Planning Commission's recent sewer study reveals something a few enviros in the area have known for a while - we've not only got a dump that needs upgrades, but we need a sewer system operating above capacity as well.

I know very, very little about sewers except what they're for, and what they do. Simple as that. What I do know is that on top of these sewer lines are easements, and in some cases, these easements could be looked at in whole, in undeveloped sections of the city, and in the end it may be feasible to build multi-use trails on top them.

In 2008 Ulster County launched a standing trail subcommittee in their legislature, much like finance, or public safety would exist in any other. It may be time for the Albany County legislature to establish such a body (perhaps an offshoot of conservation) to look at long-term recommendations by CDTC concerning trail concepts and to examine the potential of taking advantage of situations like this one to develop more trials in the county. We've got one remarkable trail (The Corning Preserve) and two remarkable opportunities that could be coming on line soon (The Albany County Rail Trail and the Patroon Creek Greenway). Let's take a look at what other opportunities exist and capitalize on them!

Spin Cylce

I felt my post about the financial benefits of the "one-car, one bicycle household" were a bit too off topic for this venue, so I wrote about them in my personal blog. I think there's some important over-lap, however, in regards to keeping cities dense, vibrant, and livable, so there you have it, a link to make it short and sweet without much space used on this blog.

A short digression

Let's talk business for a short while. Let's talk about businesses leaving, to be direct, and let's start the discussion on the relocation of pro-sports teams, cuz it's topical.

The NFL requires team ownership be comprised of a maximum of twenty-four individuals, and at least one partner must hold a thirty percent or greater share of the team. For two guys sharing a team, one guy must have 51% of the stake - making it "his team" for all intensive purposes. The only exception to this policy is the Green Bay Packers, who have been publicly owned for more than eighty years. In any given scenario (and this often happens) the largest shareholder of a team will demand various things from a city (a new stadium, infrastructure improvements, etc. etc.). The hostage in these situations is obviously the team.

"I want the city taxpayers to buy me a new stadium." - Owner
"Sorry, owner, the city can't afford that." -Mayor
"We pull a lot of water, here, and if you don't buy us a new park, we're leaving." - Owner
"Oh, Shit." - Mayor

Cleveland, 1995. Run-down. On hard times. Leaders are facing some very difficult challenges to keep the city together. The Cleveland Browns, the city's nearly 50 year-old pro football team team wasn't playing well at all and team owner Art Modell saw and opportunity to strong-arm the city of Cleveland to subsidize the development of a new stadium. There was a long history of declining revenue for the old Municipal Stadium so Modell stepped up leasing the site for a dollar a year - but he got sick of that deal, so a ballot issue was drawn up and put into voter hands for the provision of $175 million in tax dollars to spruce the place up. Cleveland voters approved the measure, but there was one problem...

A day before the vote, Mr. Modell announced that he inked a a deal that would relocate the Browns to Baltimore for the following season. I guess he didn't want to wait for the City, or had no faith that this deal would benefit his product. Lawsuits, congressional hearings, and protests by fans, soon followed. You don't $%&@ with people called 'The Dawg Pound." These folks get pretty pissed-off. But Modell didn't care. He took his team and took them out for some Natty Boh. Nevermore, Cleveland.

Without an any team in place to play football, Cleveland taxpayers must have said "Awww @#$% it," got a little crazy, and ultimately paid close to $300 million to demolish the old Municipal Stadium stadium and construct a new one. They must have figured you can't put lipstick on a pig and attract a new team, so they dug deep and petitioned the NFL for an expansion team.

Luckily the NFL sympathized. Baltimore had it's new/old team, the Ravens, and Cleveland had shown gusto. The league allowed an expansion franchise and in the end it seems to have work out for the best. The "new" Browns, with the help of new ownership, emerged in 1999 like a phoenix from the ashes in. Though, let's not look back with rose-colored glasses, the 1999 team, and Cleveland football teams since have sucked.

It doesn't just happen in sports, but it's the easiest stage to watch the drama unfold. Obviously expansions are the exception to the rule. But when a business relocates - someone loses, and loses big. Just like when a pro sports team leaves, when a factory closes, or a store shutters, there are shock waves. Affected employees either move to follow the employer, or, if they cannot a decent new job, go on public assistance. Adjacent businesses lose customers. In some cases the former industry's site becomes so obsolete, or is so polluted, that it's cheaper for a company moving in to build new someplace else rather than redevelop. The highway exit ramp, built by taxpayers to accommodate the companies traffic goes underutilized. Schools close. Houses are foreclosed on.

On a small scale the market can handle this. But on a large scale it's disastrous. I find it particularly unpleasant if the factory site is abandoned and new industry builds on a green site (for example - look where AMD and Global Foundries are building. And then take a drive around Menands, Watervliet, and the Harriman Campus.)

There are 100s of books, articles, research papers, and more about footloose companies and the new economy, so I won't dive real deep but here's the skinny: Business has one goal: To make money. For profit corporations, if publicly traded, are in business to make cash for their shareholders. The object of the game is to make stuff as cheap as possible and then sell it for as much as possible. The market should provide an equilibrium where the consumer gets what they want for a fair price. Some economists will tell you, given a completely free market, the best results will come because the marketplace demands them and everyone will be happy. Of course, we know this is not true.

Markets have winners and losers. The winners' shareholders in place A benefit when the Company 1 leaves place B and relocates to place C. Place B loses immediately and place C loses when the company chooses to relocate to place E, even though place D spend years of taxpayer money wooing Company 1. Company 2 pays less, wants less environmental controls, and demands more infrastructure, so place B now competes with place C to get company 2. Are you following this? It can lead to a race to the bottom for places A - D, and the only benefactor are shareholders in place A. Correct me if I'm wrong, add more data, let's start a discussion, or accept the fact that companies willing to move put communities at risk.

Companies relocate to places where taxes are low, labor laws weak, resources cheap, pollution controls non-existent, and labor is expandable. We subsidize these moves in tax abatement, new infrastructure, and per-job benefits and yet many people don't see how this rabid competition between regions makes us all losers. I'm not just blaming corporations here, but we need to understand how not buying local projects is killing us.

My dreams today -

The not-so-far fetched
- People buy local, stop buying homes in the suburbs

The far fetched
- We stop calling teams things like 'The New York Yankees' and 'The Boston Red Sox.' With the exception of the Green Bay Packers there's little about the teams that make them ours. These are BUSINESSES. Businesses battling to make more money, only, on a public stage, while a game goes on. The Yankees are owned by George Steinbrenner. They do not play 'for us.' The world series is reached in the board room, not on the field. Pro sports is a product like any other. Sure, we can support the home team. But until we 'own the team' let's not use pronouns like 'us' and 'we' when referring to them, and let's consider using the place in the name only if we have a stake in the ownership. Next time people ask me who I think is going to win the Superbowl, I'm asking them who they are rooting for to get market share in the paper towel business.

Wrap it up! Maximizing potential for parking

I have conflicting values when it comes to cars.

I LOVE cars. Classic cars, fast cars, safari-style 4x4s, unique and exotic automobiles. Love 'em. I keep an up-to date "top ten" list of cars I would go out and buy today if I had a million bucks and a cool garage to keep them. Heck, I could assemble a dream garage if I only had $20,000 to spend. I love the freedom cars provide. I love the idea that within a few hours of driving, in any direction, a person can find themselves in a completely new place.

I HATE what cars have done to our society. They've forced us to dependant on other areas of the world for our well-being. They have induced sprawl. They have polluted our planet with carbon monoxide and various other waste products. They have forced many into slavery - to abandon choice in transportation, trapping themselves in 2-3 hour communities. I hate people who say "I live in XXXXtown for the quality of life. I just hate the hour-long commute to and from work." Really, you chose to give up with 10 hours a week of your life to sit on the highway and you're able to cite 'quality of life' as a plus? Ugh.

Enter the ultimate conflict of my values: parking garages. These things support car culture. They occupy land where people could be working or living. The cater to people who live outside a city, not to the people who live IN the city. The trade-off of multiple parking garages is mass transit for commuters and tourists. They are ugly. They are empty, sterile places. and yet...

What is the trade-off? I look at garages and thank God that their parking spaces are arranged vertically are not horizontally. Parking lots are the ultimate form of wasted space. They are insufferable heat traps in summer and frozen wastelands in winter. They make for huge toxic run-off generators. They are voids in space: terrible places for pedestrians, uglier than anything else the land may be used for. Even if you love big box stores, you can't love the fact that 75% of the parking lot for store X is an empty, unhosptitable, dirty wasteland. Oh the lost potential!

A city is for buildings. Large swaths of land for parking lots make the city feel deserted, empty, bombed out.

Here's my thinking: Let's say you've got a parking lot for 1,000 cars. That lot takes up 100 acres. Now let's say you have a parking garage for the same 1,000 cars, but you can park 250 cars on each of the building's four floors. This garage may only need to take up 25 acres. Say you ADD a story on the top for a green roof, solar collectors, a park, an office. Now you've ADDED value without adding LAND. Building up means not needing to build OUT. I HATE what car dealerships have done to the urban fringe. These massive, unlandscaped, unsightly places say to a passer-by "unless you're going to buy a car here, there's no reason to slow down as you pass." Ugh.

What if we could bring one of those massive car dealerships back downtown and into a specifically designed parking garage-esque space? Let's say dealership X in suburbia has 100 acres of land they need to care for. They have to plow it, they are taxed for it all, and because they're located so far from the employment sector, their service center needs a shuttle, or loaners to ferry customers. Imagine this car dealership were to move into a parking garage downtown. Build up. Increase visibility. Keep the cars indoors. Have a more conveneient location for your customers. Get taxed on less land. If the business folds the building could be used for a regular garage and the dealership offices could be converted to another office use. If Dealer X closed their lot out on Central Ave then you'd need to tear it all up or hope another dealership opened there.

I keep thinking about Sheridan Hollow parking garage. Not perfect in execution (more on that later) but hey, they took a mostly unusable piece of land, satisfied a need, and filled a vacant area of land on an otherwise empty street (Sheridan).

What if a partnership (OGS, parking authority, private business, city of Albany) built a similar garage right next door. What if this garage had some enhancements like:

• 25% of the building, on the Sheridan side, was not used for parking, but for ground-level retail and upper-level office space.
• The building was wrapped in a context-sensitive way on all visable elevations
• The top floor of the garage is used as a park, additional office space, a restaurant with a balcony cafe, or ball courts.
• One floor of the building was dedicated to low-cost permit parking leased by adjacent residents thereby reducing the need for on street parking.
• The garage has 1 secure bike locker for every 25 spaces.
• A Bixi style bike rental station (park your car in the garage, access other parts of the city via bike)
• If you've gotta dig deep for support: a geothermal heating and cooling system for the building's office space.

The Sheridan Hollow model I illustrate could be used elsewhere, and at SUNYA, too. Instead of looking for dorm space on green parcels of land adjacent to their residentail neighbors (a source of recent controversy), the school could construct wrapped garages on each campus quad, thereby reducing the need for the GIGANTIC parking lots they currently use. Reduce the asphalt footprint. Limit access to permit holders only. Please your neighbors. Make the campus more visably attractive. Yeah, it's more expensive, but it's better in the long-run for so many reasons. Want to be Green? Put your money where your mouth is!

Parking garages have potential!!!!!

Welcome to... me. I'm welcoming myself

So here I am. Blogging. I think it's the last social media I'll accept in my advanced old age of 30. I've decided the first social media I will reject participating in is Twitter. It's completely pointless to me. I don't care what's on TMZ or what the Kansas City Chiefs running back Larry Johnson said about his coach... you won't find me on Twitter.

That said, here's a little about me, for those of you in the blog universe who may be wondering.

My name is Martin Daley. I live in Albany, NY. I wasn't born here, but moved he so long ago (1982) that if you do the math, it's practical to say I'm from here. I bought a house in the heart of the city in December of 2008. Yep. I said the "heart" of the city. Go ahead. Check out a map of Albany. Put a dot in where you think the geographic center of that map. I'll bet you I can walk there in 10 minutes or less.

I grew up here. I went to School 19. I went to Albany Academy. I was a pretty rambunctious kid in my younger days, so I detoured to suburban schools for the latter years of Elementary School. I came back to Albany and Hackett, and moved on to Albany High, graduating with distinction: near the absolute middle of the class. I spent a year in Boston at Newbury College. I hated the school and loved the city. I came back home, completed my education at the College of Saint Rose (yawn) and spent five years making morning television at WNYT. I was not enamoured with working in the TV business. I needed a change. I "discovered" urban and regional planning.

A little back story about how I found urban and regional planning.

I grew up off New Scotland Ave. Tell me I'm biased, but the neighborhood I lived in was perfect. I could walk to school. I could walk to get icecream. I could take the city bus to school on rainy or cold days. We played football at the empty lot next to the Firehouse. I ate a lot of pizza at the Fountain. The neighborhood was safe, it has sidewalks. We knew our neighbors. There were trees, and dead-end streets to play street hockey. All the kids played together. There was a level of diversity I did not see in the suburban schools I attended. Sure, we'd go to the mall for school shopping and electronics, but really - anything we needed was within a 10 minute walk. Everyone has a similarly sized house and lot. Small, but more than enough. We had a few rental properties, a few crazy people, a few kids who were bullies, but really, you never saw the cops or felt the need to call them. It was utopia.

When I was old enough to expand my universe via bike I spent a lot of time riding out New Scotland, Delmar, and Altamont. After I got my license I did more of the same, only a little further out. Land out there was wide-open. Beautiful farms, wooded areas that we could explore on our mountain bikes (84 acres). Scenic vistas, Rolling hills. Clean air and limited traffic.

I also explored Arbor hill and the south end. Empty houses. Gorgeous brick rowhouses and brownstones. Litter everywhere. Burned out shells of buildings I could imagine as once being prominent. People who looked destitute. Homelessness. Sadness. Buildings in disrepair.

Sometime in my late teens I noticed a change in the Suburbs that I did not see in the city. People were building homes. The scenic vistas were becoming cluttered. Roads were clogging up. Trees were being clearcut. huge homes on huge lots. Landscaping replaced farm fields. Look-alike homes popped up like pimples on a once pristine landscape. Yet.... in Arbor Hill, in the South End, in the Pastures.... nothing. No changes. The abandoned buildings remained. A air of depression still hovered. I could not understand.

When looking at graduate school I considered criminal justice (I thought "perhaps I'll be a lawyer"), health care administration (a true growth industry), and I stumbled on SUNYA's urban and regional planning. An inspirational professor, Ray Bromley, talked to me on the phone for an hour on our first conversation about what it was I thought planning was, and how the profession shaped landscapes. I began to grasp the policies and values that were shaping cities and suburbs. How we turned our back on urban places not because they were lesser places, but because there was money to be made.

In essence, I see sprawl as waste. Think about it this way. The titanic had 2228 people on board. The ship carried 20 lifeboats, enough for 1178 people. When the ship began to sink most of the lifeboats went out carrying far less than their capacity. Those left behind had no access to a lifeboat and froze to death in the icy water of the North Atlantic. Only 705 people survived. At LEAST 475 lives could have been saved if those boats left at capacity. God knows how many could have survived if there were enough boats for everyone. Failure to plan, greed, and panic was arguably the reason why most of those passengers on the infamous ship met their fate. You cannot consider such a tragedy an accident.

We're building new homes, new roads, new shopping centers - and we don't need them. Downtown's are suffering, losing their tax base, and increasingly being forced to support social services. They're being asked to do more with less. People are becoming destitute, unable to cope with, or develop a plan to get out of the chronic misery and rage in which they are entrapped. Instead of addressing these problems - the result of (not the reason for) the so called "white flight" - we continue this exodus.

Don't believe me? Check out these illustrative maps for CDRPC (Capital District Regional Planning Commission).

(I'm likely going to be referencing the CDRPC website a lot. So add that one to your Favorites!)

Why build new houses on green land when we have existing homes with access to infrastructure that already exists? Why build new roads when the old roads aren't traveled to capacity? Why abandon our cities and give up on them?

Some cities are recovering. Many are not. There are several reasons we can discuss a t a later time.

I don't have the answers, but I can tell you that I, like many of my counterparts, can easily see the problem. I'd like to propose solutions, simple solutions, that may help reverse the slow death of this city.

I'm an idealist. Fault me for it. I dream really big. Many of those dreams are not feasible. I think Daniel Burnham had some great ideas (look him up). I think Albany has more potential that people give it credit for. I'm an idea guy. Someday, and I'm working on it, I'd like to be an "implementation" guy. But let's work one step at a time.

I'm blogging here because I want to get some ideas out on "paper" I want to find like-minded people who are willing to work for the future of this city. We can gripe about mistakes, missed opportunities, and lay blame all day - but if we don't start acting on our dreams, if we accept the past failures and shortcomings of our choices as permanent, then we have chosen to fail. Let's dream big. Let's find people to implement those dreams. Let's rebuild a better Albany.

The (slightly less) Lonely City

My earlier post about Albany in Google Earth is now out of date. It appears as though someone over at the Googleplex has passed through Albany and seen fit to bless the city with a number of new models for the default 3D building layer. The Egg model made by Google itself was replaced by a model of the entire Empire State Plaza made by PianoThemes. The majority of buildings in Albany have been created by modeler Carlt5098, he did (among others) the Alfred E. Smith building, the Leo O'Brien Federal Building (down by the Palace) and a couple buildings on State and on N. Pearl. He also started the UAlbany campus. Ever since I watched a few youtube tutorials on how to use Google Sketch-Up to make 3d models, I've been hooked and wonder how to model every building I see. It's an incredibly easy process (although patience and a decent knowledge of photo manipulation, 3d modeling, and Architecture do help) and I was able to produce a simple model in about a weekend (that's now part of the Google Earth 3d layer, yay!) Anyone else out there interested in doing some modeling for the Capital Region? Its a great way to get experience working in 3d. I've been thinking of putting together a basic tutorial and a check list of important details, but this summer looks to be pretty busy. Hopefully, I can put something together before it heats up.

UAlbany Looking to Expand

BizJournals reports that the University at Albany is going to build 2 new dorms with total of 500 beds. From the article:

"The project comes at a time when UAlbany’s enrollment has grown quickly. Full-time undergraduate enrollment grew 6 percent to 12,538 from 2006 to 2008."

The odd part to me is that the University is looking to spend the same amount it spent to build Empire Commons, but Empire Commons has 1,200 beds. With steady growth of 6% why are they looking to build less than half as many dorms for the same amount of money? Space? Cost of construction?

Any ideas on where the new dorms will be built? Hopefully the school won't tear up more Pine Bush like they did when they built Empire Commons.

Fab2 Clears Another Hurdle

Looks like Stillwater approved a soil-disturbance permit for AMD/Global Foundries' Fab2 (as it is now known). No surprises here, with this economy and the way the entire state has been clamoring for the chipfab plant to be built, there's no way Stillwater would cause a problem.

Now all Global Foundries has to do is buy the actual 222-acres of land and get building permits.

In related news the architectural firm hired to handle the design and construction of Fab2, M+W Zander, pulled a no show in Saratoga today.

And don't forget, AMD makes the Hollywood chip, the main CPU in Nintendo's wildly successful Wii home game console. AMD's stock numbers may be down, but they've got one hell of a cash cow in that chip.

Crowdsourcing a New Downtown

I was reading an article over DIA last month and the quote he pulled out from the TU stuck with me. The quote is in relation to a residential development in downtown Albany, and DIA is amused that the developer has his credit "squared away." What bugged me wasn't that I didn't believe the developer had his credit all lined up (I don't), it ran deeper, down to how developers approach projects altogether. After watching a number of potential developers getting close (Queri and their Quackenbush Square complex by the Pump Station, the Capital Grand, the Israeli firm that owns the Central Warehouse) I started to dissect what it was that was bothering me about how they were trying to get their projects going.

It seems most developers are happy to determine "what the market wants" for people, and then wait around until future tenants start flocking to sign up to live there. They put together some pretty pictures, slap a price on the condo or apartment and they figure if the market is here, people will come.

Doesn't that sound a little top-down? The developer uses their judgment, experience, opinions and biases to determine what sort of development would be "appropriate" for an area. They leave it up to research to determine if a particular project gets built and to the market to find out if it's successful. Why not try a more bottom-up approach. This is the age of the "wisdom of crowds." So why not crowdsource a development in downtown Albany?

Crowdsourcing is a common term on the web, but its been making significant inroads to becoming common here in meatspace (reality). It takes advantage of the uber-grassroots mentality that has gripped the current generation of people that grew up on the web. All the best web sites right now rely on a kind of input from their users to produce and direct content. facebook, youtube, flickr, digg, yelp and amazon are all perfect examples. Take away the users and the content they generate and all those sites are simply a framework for sharing information.

Crowdsourcing in reality is a little different and requires a small group who will find and organize a larger group of people who will commit to living in a place of their own (consensus based) creating. Residences aren't the only possible outcomes either, a community based co-operative coffee house, art space, or bar are other common permutations of the crowdsourcing formula.

Neil Takemoto over at CoolTownStudios has a TON of information and examples of real places being crowdsourced by real people right now. He's all about creating good third places for creatives in authentic cultural districts in urban areas. A link-loaded sentence for sure, but there really is massive amounts of great info there, check it out.

It would work like this: There is a need to get people living downtown. Would you being willing to move there? What would you need to move there? Nothing is open after 5, would we need a grocery store, a corner store, a bank? What sort of arrangement would we want? Condos? Rental apartments? Should it be a rehab or new construction? Once we come up with a fleshed out project that we can all agree upon, we start looking for a builder who can get excited over a housing project that already has tenants (in this economy developers will jump for joy over such a guaranteed project).

If we could get a significant amount of people to sign up, we basically get to dictate the final product. Builders would bend over backward to accommodate or 100 people committed to moving into a project before it's even built. Heck, even 50 people, or 30. As long as there are tenants lined up, developers will listen. That kind of certainty in this economy is better than gold.

So who's in? Who wants to live in glorious downtown Albany?


Here's a proto-project to get the ball rolling (feel free to critique)

• 50 unit residential in downtown
• new construction (there's a couple reasons for this, first, there are a couple of developers looking to build already, and second, the project has a lot less constraints if the building is new, but overall i prefer rehab projects)
• Built to LEED standards (silver, gold platnum? depends on how it would affect cost of construction)
• extensive recycle program (large residential buildings need to hire a private trash and recycle contractor, no city pickup)
• A green roof (to hang out on, to save money of heating and cooling, a place for birds and other wildlife to hang out)
• solar panels? use renewable energy from national grid?
• pre-wired for internet and cable in every unit
• community space? day care?
• parking spots? bike racks? More buses?
• grocery store on the first floor? other retail?
• should it be rental, condo or co-operative?
• a mix of 1,2, and 3 bedrooms?
• the real key for me is not high-end living, but simple, cheap, and green.

So what do you think? What would it take for you to move downtown?

AMD Chipfab Plant Inching Closer to Reality

The Times Union reports that the chipfab planned for Luther Forest has passed yet another hurdle toward construction; late Tuesday night it recieved approval from the Malta planning board to move forward.

The next step is tomorrow, the 13th, where the Stillwater planing board will consider approval for the plan to move forward. Apparently, Global Foundries (the spin off from AMD that is now responsible for the chipfab) must still buy the actual land, and then obtain permits from both Malta and Stillwater to begin construction.

As for the date of actual construction (from the article):

It’s unclear when exactly GlobalFoundries will start moving dirt and removing trees at the site. The company originally said it wanted all approvals in place to start on March 17, St. Patrick’s Day, but more recently has mentioned April as a likely start date.

Let's hope so. In related news, both AMD and Intel were lobbying in DC for lower taxes for companies who send jobs overseas [via bizjournals]

Study Shows Promise in River Rail Corridor

The CDTA and Senate High-Speed Rail Task Force have found that one of the best options for increasing north-south mass transit routes in the Capital Region is the existing rail right-of-way running north from Albany up through Menands, Watervliet and Cohoes. Currently used by Canadian Pacific, it could (relatively) easily be converted to light rail use, and would have excellent access to pre-existing population and employment centers.

Along with the so-called "river corridor," the proposal also says that the CTDA's Northway Express (NX), connecting Albany to Saratoga, could see increased frequency (with dedicated lanes coming further on down the road [no pun intended]), and that the existing Amtrak service from Albany to Schenectady to Saratoga could be expanded and made into a viable commuter rail corridor (something that's already in the works).

As the article points out, the beauty of this river corridor is that it runs through well-established cities with excellent urban fabric and density (and who, frankly, could use a good economic shot in the arm), while also serving the needs of the greater area. Again, I'm speaking in relative terms here, but it'd be relatively easy in a later expansion to run light rail from, say, the existing Cohoes line on up to Saratoga via Halfmoon and Malta.

But the idea of rejuvenating Watervliet et al. is what really tickles my fancy, as they already have what many of today's people want: a living environment with walkable neighborhoods and urban sensibilities. Cohoes' Harmony Mills development has shown there to be a demand for such a lifestyle in such an area, and given a shiny new light rail system (plus some good ol' fashioned TLC), there's no reason they couldn't find more people to live and invest in their cities.

Lastly, the study breaks down the options into three phases:

Near-Term (2009-14):
- Increase, restructure NX (Northway express) commuter bus service
- Refine river corridor options, develop consensus on bus rapid transit, light-rail transit
- Promote extension of NYC Amtrak service to Saratoga Springs and state rail improvements

Mid-term (2015-20)
- Upgrade NX service with signal priority, greater frequency and span
- Develop shuttles to Luther Forest Technology Campus, other emerging employment centers
- Complete river corridor construction, begin service
- Build new intermediate commuter rail station, provide shuttle to SUNY and airport

Long-term (2021-30)
- Build managed lanes on Northway for NX
- Buy rail equipment to expand commuter service
- Enhance river corridor service, as needed.

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Common Council Ward Maps

In honor of the up coming elections this fall, I've put together this map of the Albany Common Council Wards. From my own experience I know it can be difficult to figure out what ward you live in and the overall area each ward covers, so this map should help. Check out the larger version over at Google Maps or the smaller, embedded version below.

The map is still a rough copy, I intend to to go over it and double check my lines, but for the inner city areas the map should be pretty accurate. It's the outlying areas where the ward lines deviate from roads or other easily identifiable features that are most likely incorrect.


View Larger Map

Lonely City

The map nerd in me can't help but be crushed by how poorly Albany, and indeed the entire Capital Region, is rendered in Google Earth.

For those of you unfamiliar with Google Earth, it's a 3D virtual globe application, similar to Google Maps in that it provides plenty of geographic data but Google Earth must be downloaded and runs in it's own program. It also accurately displays the curvature of the Earth, whereas Google Maps is purely flat.

The program allows people from all over the world to contribute different kinds of information and links, but the one feature that I'm in love with is the 3D Building layer. This layer populates the map with various 3D renderings of real world buildings, all georeferenced so that they show up exactly where they would be in real life. For a great example, check out New York City in Google Earth, the majority of Manhattan and most of Brooklyn are fully rendered. Looks amazing (just make sure to let it all load).

Sure, this isn't the most pressing issue in Albany, what with the Ghost tickets, Budget Crisis, Pine Bush/Landfill Controversy, Convention Center boondoggle, oh- and the Violence. But even Rome has a 3D Warehouse group! Yes, Rome, NY!

To have a group on Google's 3D Warehouse (where people upload the models made in Sketch Up, which are then cherry picked by Google for inclusion in Google Earth) a city must have at least 12 models. Having a group is a good first step to filling the city with models, it shows that theres been progress and encourages further model building. Right now there only about 5 models included in Google Earth in Albany, but three of them (The Egg, Pepsi Arena and the Capitol) were built by Google themselves. So thats another 7 models that have to be made well enough to warrant inclusion.

Theres a decent number of models in the 3D Warehouse for Albany (about 24 actually) which haven't been included in Google Earth for what ever reason. So there's definite interest in rendering Albany, it just needs to get organized.

Albany Zoning Map

It's not difficult to find, but the zoning map of Albany is pretty interesting.

I had issues with needing to see the legend while looking at the map so I created an separate file of just legend.

View the just the Legend. [hosted on Picasa]

View the Zoning map [Picasa] image.

I recommend downloading the map and legend to your computer and viewing them with a simple image viewer.

The zoning map is courtesy of the City of Albany website. Its available as a pdf at their Board of Zoning Appeals page. The ZBA page under the Development and Planning header, not the ZBA page under boards and committees. All I did was resize and save the pdf as a jpg and gif.

The Winchester Gables

Recently there's been a surge of interest in one of my favorite architectural oddities of Albany, The Winchester Gables. A cluster of single storey, detached residences in the Spanish Colonial Revival style, the Winchester houses can be found spread across the Pine Hills Neighborhood.

Both the Times Union and the Metroland have articles on them (weird) and even All Over Albany gets in on the action with some fuzzy math saying that the unusual architecture raises the price about 20%.

20%? That makes a mighty compelling case to build and preserve unusal architecture around the Captial Region.