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$300 a night to share? No thank you, maybe it was best for it to be cancelled. One of the biggest disappoints for Maryland in my opinion was that one of our cities was originally supposed to have Mall of America.
Oh my god, that was going to be in Silver Spring, I remember that, I grew up near there.
I was really disappointed it wasn't built, that would've been unbelievable but perhaps it's for the best. That area is now Downtown Silver Spring, which is very nice as well and has a ton of retail. Probably a blessing in disguise since malls have really died in the past decade and having a revitalized downtown may have been a better way to go instead of a megamall with a huge parking lot.
There was a proposal for a Titanic Casino resort here, 7+ years ago, featuring a replica of the Titanic, sitting in a lake, with water squirting out of it into the lake, but was killed by neighboring residents who didn't wish to stare up at a 250 foot high iceberg everyday!
The "Blue Whale", Fountainbleu tower, at 64 stories, clad in 3 shades of blue glass, has been sitting there unfinished for 3-4 years now. At least they got most of the glass on it, but panels of glass keep falling out of it to this day.
I would love to see this completed, but Carl Icahn bought it and is waiting for the economy to come back. When? Big question!
The Echelon Casino resort sits across the street, which was halted 3-4 years ago as well, which was to feature a 57 story hotel tower which I'd also love to see finished. But Boyd only got up to the 10th floor and halted construction.
I still regret that the FAA didn't allow the current Stratosphere tower (tallest free-standing structure west of Chicago @1049 feet) to reach the 2000 feet height that was planned.
If I remember correctly, the Wells Fargo Center in Minneapolis was supposed to about 200 feet taller. IDS was supposed to have a larger Twin Tower. But the biggest project that didn't get built in any capacity or incarnation is probably the Nicollet.
I lived in Minneapolis when that building was proposed, and the city council got it into their heads that no future skyscrapers downtown would exceed the height of the IDS Tower at 775 feet.
So the Wells Fargo Center and First Bank Tower are both just a few feet shorter. Have no idea if they've lifted the height limits since I left there in 1993.
What is your city greatest cancelled (or signifcantly scaled back) project/building/etc? Please give the specifications of the project as well, just to put in perspective how large it was supposed to be.
For Baltimore I would say 10 Inner Harbor, it was to be 59 floors and would have been the tallest from Philly to Charlotte. It would have been 1.5 million sq ft, would have included office, residential and retail space.
Here in Meriden, Ct. there was this huge power plant being built which took down some beautiful wooded area but was going to "bring lots of potential income and jobs to this area". There was some sort of deal going on with the powers that be here to give the "potential owners" a huge tax break..which was done and the huge power plant was NOT. Now, there is the big empty facility that tore up a good section of the woods and mountain in the area it is located and still no one taking advantage of it..they even made a road into the empty facility and now have to have guards there to keep homeless and teens from vandalizing it. Big waste of money..oh, and there was also suppose to be some sort of deal with our local utility company so that we here in the city would be getting our power at a reduced cost...OKKKKK...right!
So the grand plan for Dallas in the 1960s-1970s was to turn the Trinity River (a tiny ditch by the time it gets to Dallas) to be a giant inland shipping lane with manufacturing, modelled on Pittsburgh PA I think. The plan included several reserviours which would be built between Dallas and Houston and which would act as locks since Dallas is 600 ft above sea level and widening the Trinity such that giant container ships and barges could navigate it ala the Mississippi River. I40 and other highways between Dallas and Houston actually were built with this plan in mind and many of the interchanges crossing water are high enough to accomodate large ship traffic and I think one of the reserviours near Houston was partially built.
However, concerns about ruining the natural habitat of the Trinity River, one of the first major uses of the endangered species act, and the ridiculous cost shut the project down towards the end of the '70s.
Imagine Dallas as a southern version of Pittsburgh and a center of shipping rather than highway transport. Pretty crazy.
Bump. Come to think of it, Baltimore's greatest project would've been a complete interstate system throughout the city, instead it stops in mysterious places and ghost exits exist. And the the complete subway system that was originally envisioned would've been nice as well, now we're stuck with a pathetic 13-station subway "system" which is really just one line. A second line is being proposed but its moving along slowly, I say make it into a public-private development to speed it up and save money.
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