Ideas for Big Spring Park and Downtown

[Huntsville_secede]

Originally Posted by financelife

haha, I loved your analogy. You are right. I guess, I just mean Huntsvillians don't seem to care about it. When I did live there, I loved meeting my wife to have lunch at the park and watch the pigeons do their funny mating dances. Also, conerts in the park were good and as you said, free, just take your lawn chairs.

The other point I didn't make clear was that Huntsville is still not large enough to make an inner city park attractive. Monte Sano park is a really nice place to visit with its trails and playgrounds and bbq areas.

Yeah I get your point about an inner city park is not as big a deal in Huntsville because there being so many other nicer options available. I think a park downtown is useless if thats the ONLY thing you have down there because there are areas around city that offer a better outdoors experience if thats all you are looking for. For instance, Green Mountain Park, Monte Sano, Guntersville, Wheeler, etc the list goes on. I think what makes parks in the city so attractive such as Central Park is that they offer a nature experience in the middle of the city. Of course that doesn't mean people aren't going to go to the park in Huntsville with our lacking downtown, but I don't think a park should inhibit downtown development like the city council is trying to use as excuse now. Because a downtown park is worthless if there is nothing else downtown worth going to besides the park. Downtown Huntsville even though it is lacking and is not what it COULD be, Big Spring park isn't the only thing down there. But if they continue to inhibit development with height restrictions and with the rising costs of land in Madison County developers will look elsewhere. I even hear there is a clause that says if the Holiday Inn closes it has to be demolished and become part of the park. I'm all for greenspace but there's no point of having a park downtown with NO BUILDINGS.. this isn't the country this is the center of a city with a metro area of almost 400K and a region of almost 700K!

[clamoore]

While I disagree with the height restriction, maybe there will be a new downtown develop around the proposed Constellation project. The new downtown could spread west along Clinton and north/south down Monroe and Church.

[katina1975]

I personally think all of your ideas are great, I also feel like city managers need to focus on businesses that are already here and try to find some new direction concerning ideas. Downtown is capable of alot of things but remember businesses such as the library which is suppose to serve as a main attraction that people here in Danville hardly utilize. What would new businesses have to gain if old businesses are not prosperous. I also feel like residents such as myself aren't exposed to alot of change so it's hard for people to be receptive to new things if change is just catered to a certain crowd. Find something that everyone enjoys, young, old, rich, poor, black or white.