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Pros:
This is infusing $70 mil into Sunnyside, after the $35 mil down on Beechurst and a few million from other apartment projects. That's over $100 million being invested in the neighborhood in efforts to reduce blight and, in this case, control "excessive celebrations." They are probably going to put a police substation there as well. The days of the Sunnyside slums are numbered.
The city isn't losing out. When this was first announced, many people thought the city would lose out because WVU is a (mostly) non-taxable entity. But now that details have surfaced, the city will get both rental taxes as well as B&O from the retail, along with the initial building permit costs ($1.6 mil).
This increases the population density downtown. Sometimes that can be bad, but over the past 5-10 years we've seen the effects of an enrollment and overall population boom in Morgantown - sprawl. The West Run area has exploded with rentals and most of the students drive to class - or at least park at the Coliseum - thus increasing the number of cars on the roads. With the new developments downtown, we're seeing a response to that sprawl - contraction. Instead of spreading out, we're now concentrating on building up and filling in with rentals within walking distance of campus. Now, you're looking at almost 1000 more people walking to class than driving.
Retail in Sunnyside. The one thing that has been needed for a while has been a full-service grocer. Imagine a Trader Joe's within walking distance of thousands of people. This means quality food and fresh produce (although I would still encourage people to go to the Farmers Market on Saturdays) available, again, without having to drive.
Cons:
I can't believe the University is undertaking this mid-school year. They're basically evicting over 100 people over Winter Break. Merry Christmas. I know they'll help them find places to live, but imagine having to pick up everything in a month and a half when just last week you had no intentions of leaving, possibly for a few years.
Moving the problem. So we all know how gentrification works, and most of the time, the former residents will move to adjacent areas and usually will degrade the quality of life there. Will this revitalization automatically fix the riot problem? Probably not, as it is a mentality more than anything. It is perfectly positioned, at the corner of Grant and 3rd - ground zero of Sunnyside, but this may just push the problem down a couple of blocks. Or WVU football might not ever have a defense and thus no reason to celebrate!
Parking lot across the street. Apparently, from University to Quay will be extra parking for the retail and residence. I loathe surface lots in most situations. Such as this. Why not go ahead and build the parking lot, but also build more rentals above it? They're doing so for these two buildings (at least from the renderings), why not over there? And if it's a cost thing, meet in the middle and build a parklet on top like the Mountainlair garage. Ugh.
Neither pro nor con:
No sense of place. I can't complain that this is getting built, but at least for now you have an area with two dorms, two large apartment buildings, and mostly originally single-family housing. I think we'll see more developments in the coming years, but for now it seems a little disjointed, like having urban and suburban mixed instead of defined places.
All in all, this is great news for Morgantown, both short-term and long. Coupled with whatever they plan to do with the Falling Run property, downtown is going to drastically change in the next 5 years.
"Our goal is to make this as seamless and as less stressful as possible for students," Weese said. "Quite frankly, if you look at Sunnyside, almost anything available would be an upgrade. The bottom line is we're taking care of our students."
Sunnyside is by far the most blighted part of our city, and most of those buildings have been poorly maintained to the point that they have needed to come down for many years. We still have a smaller blighted area along route 7 up to the Hogback Turn, but this makes a major positive contribution to Morgantown's housing stock.
It is more than obvious that the next step will be further major development along Beechurst, and the net total of all of this is a fantastic facelift for our city. Also, while many folks like to have a good time and party, most of the problems have been caused by a rather small group of individuals. They will be dislocated by this and hopefully dispersed as well. In addition, although I am generally not in favor of increased police presence it is needed in this case, and it is coming. We have a thoughtful and innovative administration in place at WVU, and they are taking charge on several fronts. We're not talking about piecemeal academic programming of questionable value here. These guys are taking The University forward in ways not imagined in previous times, and they are doing it with minimal involvement on the part of taxpayers. They have brought in well over $500 million in donations in the past couple years alone.
This will be great for WVU as well as the state. I like the grocery store idea, just wonder which brand. Probably just a regular Giant Eagle. Foodlion, or Krogers. It would be nice to see a Whole Foods, but doubt that will be the store.
elewis7, you bring up an interesting point about trying to stop the sprawl. I think even more interesting will be to see the effect that these new developments will have on those newer, outlying apartments. WVU has gained about 7,000 students over the last 10 years and based on things coming from WVU about capping enrollment and trying to improve the academic stats of students, they aren't likely to see that same growth over the next 10 years. Since you already have new apartment complexes being sold at bankruptcy auctions for much less than their value and being bought by the homeless shelter and another sitting unfinished, it will be interesting to see how the outlying developments handle this.
elewis7, you bring up an interesting point about trying to stop the sprawl. I think even more interesting will be to see the effect that these new developments will have on those newer, outlying apartments. WVU has gained about 7,000 students over the last 10 years and based on things coming from WVU about capping enrollment and trying to improve the academic stats of students, they aren't likely to see that same growth over the next 10 years. Since you already have new apartment complexes being sold at bankruptcy auctions for much less than their value and being bought by the homeless shelter and another sitting unfinished, it will be interesting to see how the outlying developments handle this.
The issue is there is so much development and growth here that developments that were once considered good quickly become obsolete and unwanted.
The growth in Morgantown is actually no longer even related to the university and now has to do more with the local economy. Perhaps if the Morgantown economic boom is ever able to help stabilize the decline of Huntington you will see the same situation.
Cry, the decline of Huntington is over, and it has been for a decade. Sure, they're not experiencing the same boom as Morgantown, but they have been at a stable or slightly growing population for years. The economy there has turned around and you're seeing more connections between the city and Marshall. To be honest, I was shocked to see how appealing their downtown is, especially after hearing about how it fell on harder times as most other urban areas in WV.
Back to Morgantown. You're absolutely right about the developments. You look at a place like West Run or the Ridge, which were the best places at the time. Then they were outdone by the District, Mountain Valley, Copper Beech, etc. The problem is that they're all the same basically. Then Beechview Place and now University Place come along. They're something totally new - actual urban apartment buildings instead of a collection of cheaply-built townhomes next to farms. We're seeing a push nationally and locally to re-habitate downtown areas and, with gas prices high, being able to build something within walking distance to virtually anything one would need on a daily basis is a great idea. I think we'll see most of the outlying townhomes still be filled as Morgantown is growing, but we won't see a boom of them again with a concerted effort to populate downtown (not to mention West Run now has zoning laws).
I agree elewis but I do think that some of the outlying complexes will have trouble staying full in the coming years. Especially some of the older places like Timberline or the places that are less convenient like West Run. This will most likely have an effect on the rents that they are able to charge at least.
And thanks for the props to Huntington. Downtown is coming along nicely. Nice post though. Thanks for actually having a nice, civil discussion. I really appreciate that.
I think the Ridge will be the first to go, followed by West Run. The Ridge has the lowest rents of any of the large townhome complexes, and West Run was just bought out of bankruptcy a year ago. And you're right, the rents will go down in the others as well. The Domain up at University Town Center will be insulated to this effect because it is new, has great views, and is right next to the shopping (and new ballpark soon!). I think you'll see at least two new complexes on Beechurst as a conceptual one was announced over the summer. And if University Place is successful, I think after a few years another developer might want to build a similar-scale project from Houston Dr. down to Campus Drive adjacent to campus. That will finally fill in the block bounded by University Ave, University Place, Life Sciences, and Summit/Honors Halls.
Side note - I'm a huge fan of Huntington. Despite my dad having graduated there, I have only been a handful of times, mostly to campus for choir events or Ritter Park for tennis regionals. I only recently got a chance to explore Pullman Square and the surrounding blocks during Ribfest. I was amazed at the number of independent restaurants in the area and the general feel. With Marshall expanding its high tech programs (Biomed, biometrics, and now engineering) as well as its visual arts program downtown, the vitality of the town isn't just sequestered to campus, or the hospital, but it is starting to be interwoven between many districts, finally making a cohesive city. The 4th Ave project alone as given a great facelift to a mediocre strip. I'm excited to see what the future holds for Huntington, Morgantown, and West Virginia as a whole!
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