What new projects are your small city up too lately? (live, best)
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I'm personally growing tired of hearing chats about big cities. "oh Austin is doing that" "Oh New York is doing that there" "Oh Denver is doing this" etc. I want to hear what big projects are happening in your small towns/cities (50k-300k population)
I suppose I'll start
My home city of Mobile AL just announced the creation of what will be the largest logistics park in the southeast. The land it will be built on is 1300 acres. When it's all said and done it will have 11 mil square feet of warehousing. Job projects are up to 10,000 when it is fully created and leased.
The same day that the South Alabama Logistics Park was announced, the FAA approved the master plan to move the airport to just south of downtown. This move not only places the airport right along the interstate and near downtown but will also upgrade it to an International Airport status. It will take about 4 years to move operations from the regional airport to the new airport
North of the city, a near billion dollar expansion of our steal mill broke ground 2 weeks ago.
Ten's of millions of dollars in road reconstruction are happening in our inner city streets right now with new sidewalks, new drainage, new lighting, and new bike lanes including a complete road diet of one of the major thoroughfare around downtown. 6 lane concrete highway being reduced to 2 and 4 lane asphalt with new parking, A LOT of new trees, a new roundabout, and shielded bike lane. Which will lead all the way to the new downtown airport when finished. Once all current projects are done there will be about 10 new miles of bikes lane with many more miles still in the planning stages
The shipbuilder Austal located across from the port in downtown is expanding its ship-making capable to create both Aluminum and Steel ships that also broke ground 2 weeks ago
Nearly all of our multistory buildings (low rise and mid rise) have been given new life as condos, offices, and apartments along with about 20-30 new restaurants and 3 breweries coming to downtown in past few years. I think there's about 3 to 5 restaurants preparing to open right now
There's plenty more projects going on but not as noteworthy as the above
Lake Charles, LA is renovating the Isle of Capri into a legit luxury casino. It was definitely outdated and much needed. Will go great with the rest of the casinos in the area.
Meanwhile, a large refinery split with Sasol and some other business are shaping up.
An ongoing project in Reno, NV right now is extending the BRT system --- which currently only runs along a section of the arterial Virginia St several miles south of downtown --- north through Midtown, downtown, and finally to the UNR campus. It's a rapidly growing metro, one could probably even justify a light rail system but at the very least a strong BRT system makes sense.
The big hot-button topic, though, is tech CEOs lobbying governor Sisolak to allow corporations to found incorporated towns out in the desert and run them with no government interference. Somehow it makes sense to see this playing out in America's most libertarian state.
In my suburban Charlotte town of 77k (Gastonia), the new baseball stadium for our single A team will be opening up this month. Two new business parks are under construction. Several new SFH housing developments and condo/apartment complexes are going up around town.
In West New York (NJ) they're actually expanding this cool park that's built right into the Palisades. It includes ball fields, a skate park, some bball courts and they're expanding/renovating it. It's slightly hidden from view as you walk along Boulevard East so you have to kind of look over the edge of the cliffs a level down and you'll see it.
Lots of things going on in Grand Rapids MI right now.
1. Insurance Broker Accrisure is getting ready to move it's headquarters into a new building downtown from the suburbs. They have bought land and submitted plans to start working on a second tower across the street as well.
2. Generic drug maker Perrigo has broken ground on a building to move it's headquarters to Grand Rapids medical research corridor from rural Allegan.
3. $6 billion Spectrum Health is finalizing it's plans on a new $100 million headquarters in the medical mile district in order to free up more clinical space in it's Midtown research and care facilities.
4.Michigan State University College of Human medicine is finishing work on it's new $80 million research/incubator building across the street from it's main headquarters and next to it's research facility that was completed 2 years ago.
5. Embassy Suites, Hyatt Place, Residence Inn, Hiton Canopy, AC Marriott have all recently completed new hotels downtown. The convention authority currently has plans for a new 24 story convention hotel on hold until business picks up to pre-pandemic levels.
6. There are currently about 3000 new apartment units in various stages of planning and construction throughout the city. The city has a goal of 10,000 more by 2025. One of them being the redevelopment of this GIANT underutilized old factory on the south side of downtown. The revitalization of the city's core continues to creep further into the cities SW side which is full of these awesome old factories and warehouses.
7. The city is about to begin a restoration to the namesake rapids in the river that were dregged in the 1880's for logging purposes. They have also rezoned, and repurposed about a mile on each side of the river for redevelopment, and are currently in the midst of moving several city departments away from the waterfront to allow for redevelopment, and public activity back along the riverfront.
8. The state of Michigan is FINALLY upgrading the freeway infrastructure around the city to accommodate for the new residents and workers over the last 50 years. The regions transit authority just opened up their second BRT route last year to alleviate congestion on the busy route between the city and Grand Valley State University.
9. Grand Valley State university is completing is fourth building in the cities medical district and has purchased several blocks in an adjoining neighborhood. It is continuing to expand it's main downtown campus.
10. The Airport is in the midst of a $140 million expansion on concourse A to double the gates. GRR's traffic almost trippled from 2010-2019
There are other projects and office towers in the works, though I wonder if the work from home movement will shelve them. Over the last 10 years almost every under utilized or vacant property in the downtown or surrounding neighborhoods have either been renovated or replaced.
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
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Here in Sammamish, WA (65,000) the City is doing nothing exciting, but we were recently named the safest city in Washington state, and the "best small city" in America so they must be doing things right.
City Project:
A project to provide better access for Kokanee Salmon to spawning grounds
A new culvert under a busy road for better access for Kokanee Salmon from the lake to a creek
Widening two main arterials
Improvements to 2 busy intersections
Here in Sammamish, WA (65,000) the City is doing nothing exciting, but we were recently named the safest city in Washington state, and the "best small city" in America so they must be doing things right.
City Project:
A project to provide better access for Kokanee Salmon to spawning grounds
A new culvert under a busy road for better access for Kokanee Salmon from the lake to a creek
Widening two main arterials
Improvements to 2 busy intersections
There's some new development going on around SE 4th St west of 228th right? I was over there a few weeks ago and saw some dead-end streets marked as "road not completed".
That part of Sammamish is interesting. It was semi-rural until recently. But it's inside the Seattle-area urban growth boundary, and some density is allowed. So this little semi-urban retail/apartment complex has gone up across from fields. And some of the other fields are also getting some density.
Like all towns in the Seattle area, Sammamish is required to accommodate growth. And per typical, they do this by directing much of their growth into nodes (vs. spread all over), including new ones in their case, plus densification of existing commercial areas.
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