From the presentation tonight, it sounds like they want to remove it, but several state agencies are still kind of convinced it is necessary as a flood control measure, which is why the berm was built in the first place. Sure, it interrupts the flow of traffic, but they prioritize interrupting the flow of water. So it's up to the city and the project team to convince those state agencies that it's no longer necessary, and in the meantime they're moving forward to get things started moving forward. On the plus side, they greatly simplified the zoning and land use categories on the site, so it's almost entirely Central Business District land-use category, which means they can go unlimited height & density on most of the site except where the historic Shops building are, and zoned the area as C-3 (central business district, unlimited height/density commercial or residential, R-5 (high density residential) and Hospital (hospital) with a few carve-outs to bring down the height along the side closest to the existing neighborhood, Alkali Flat, to a max of 120 feet. They have also upped the range of housing from their initial estimate of maybe 5-6,000 to a planned total between 6,000 and 10,000. The first phase of housing will be midrise buildings like we're seeing on 16th Street, with the expectation that if the market changes and highrise becomes economically feasible, they can transition to building high-rise. And because the C-3 zoning can be office, residential or mixed use, they can build more residential into the "office" zone if it is needed. Basically the new plan provides a lot of flexibility for the developer, including the option to add alleys to the blocks if they are needed for service access, or put a building with a bigger, whole-block footprint on the site. Overall it's looking good.
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"Old ideas can sometimes use new buildings. New ideas must use old buildings."--Jane Jacobs
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