Talk:Underwood, ND

From CollabLandWiki

Project scope

• 1. main street beautification
• 2. historic building enhancement
• 3. urban design: residential areas & enhancing relationship of town to highway corridor

Underwood Group, Just some quick thoughts about the verbal design proposals thusfar: Since we don’t have much for visual representation, the only impression I have, or objection rather, is the overemphasis on developing the highway near the entrance. This may not be your intention, but the impression I have is that most of the money and growth/addition of business and financial life is focused on the highway at the entrance to Underwood, ignoring the vital maintenance/renewal and expansion needed at the social heart of the city, the downtown. In order to convince people to stay and move to Underwood, I feel this is the more important area we need to focus our attention toward. I’m sure you feel much the same way; if the downtown fails to gain momentum and the highway brings in the majority of the business, Underwood may be financially secure to some extent but without a gathering place for the people who actually reside there. Al Gore and I were talking about possibly developing the entrance and adding a couple businesses at the intersection spaces between the entrance road and the highway. Also the way passers-by enter and park and exit their vehicles should revolve around orienting people to the rest of the businesses through some sort of enhanced visual connection and interest, possibly filling in the gaps with walkable greenspaces that encourage people to engage in the rest of the main street (at least where people would walk). Kavan, you know better than I the situation of Lemmon, SD. The highway is lined with businesses that are very convenient to stop for those passing through, but the residents lack any sense of place regarding the downtown. Also Gore sited an example of a town he drives through and stops at when he goes back and forth from his home in Rochester. His routine was to stop at the subway along the road and on one occasion he decided to try the downtown scene (or lack thereof), and was utterly disappointed, and I’m sure the residents feel the same. The highway point of intersection should be seen as a way to capture attention to the town and give a solid persuasion to enter, for the passerby and potential residents. After the initial entrance, visual cues should invite people to further experience the town.

Derek

Another point.

The principle of basically every mall from the strip malls that line the highways to even the Mall of America is that big box “anchor store” are placed at the corners and successful malls make people walk past the vast amount of smaller stores that get there revenue by the stream people passing their doors.

How this can equate to Underwood, and to build on what Derek said, grab their attention at the intersection then produce or exploit an already exiting “entity” at the end of downtown or beyond.

Kavan / Everyone

Before getting into things I want to emphasis the importance of writing down their thoughts and sending them to everyone, this way we can have a proper discussion and dialogue, which would normally not be necessary but because of our distance it become essential.

Concerning your (kavan) research that we talked about last night I pick up the book, “The American City: What Works, What Doesn’t,” by Alexander Garvin, for obvious reasons. It suggest ingredients of success that I think we could use for our base argument of where we want people to focus on and why we want focus there.

The key ingredients are:

            Market:

“The existence of a market for any urban planning prescription is primary, for without it there is no reason to consider action. The word market it not synonymous with population. It means a specific population’s desire for something its ability and willingness to pay for it in the face of available alternatives” (pg 10)

“Market demand often declines… when consumers discover cheaper, more convenient, or more attractive places to shop” (pg 11)

           Location:

“Proximity involves both time and space. The temporal dimension is shape by technology and can be understood in terms of available means of conveyance.” (pg 13)

           Design:

           Financing:

           Entrepreneurship:

           Time:

           Government:

The other ingredient you can already figure out why they are important and if not we can address it later.

Kavan if you wanted to get this book either from U of M or the public library I think at least the first about these ingredients are good to glance over.

Please feel free to add edit or change any of these thoughts.

Underwood image – Selling in seconds: The Smile campaign

Historic scope of city development in this region: Rail/train centered

New focus Highway faced development.

I do think downtown has value, but we have a bigger problem to address, or a better opportunity to look at like you stated. Historical cities have developed around the rail line. An opportunity for Underwood is to detach itself from this now insignificant focus and sell itself where it counts: the Hwy. The twenty-first century rail line.

The “Simile Campaign” is just a made up name to call attention to Underwood’s visible side – the view from the highway.

Ideas for possible projects:

1. Work on Johns restaurant make sure it becomes an attraction. 2. DESIGN an new sign: Sell the city, say more than just Underwood. Put a sign for the restaurant on there, the other shop (whatever it is called), and make sure people are aware of what’s in Underwood. ex. Golf course. Make it eye catching yet affordable 3. By the way what is going up there next to Johns building?

Downtown significance can be seen two fold:

Immediately – in our group we talked about a place for 16-21 to hang out. I don’t think that the front part of the hardware store would be hard to restore, if T Roy would give it away. Same with hotel maybe? A basketball court could be set up in the adjacent lot. The only thing I see as involving significant money is if structural work needs to get done. I don’t see this project as a big business project but on a community level. Aka get kids to clean out T Roy’s crap and refurbish it. Put some pool tables in there, a room to view movies, and let them get hopped up on coffee and pizza.

Other major modifications other then beautifications efforts I think are out of the economic scope of Underwood until the Hwy corridor improves enough to bring in traffic. So I don’t think we should abandon downtown, and any considerations of demolishing buildings are ill advised. Our scope and view of downtown might be to recognize that nothing will happen other than above mentioned project for the next ten years.

Other area of addressing:

Creating a city gateway or addressing the gateway between the two silos.

We might want to ask if their “Renaissance Zone” is being utilized and if not how that can be improved to help business know the benefits.

   http://www.cityoffargo.com/CityInfo/Downtown/RenaissanceZone/Projects/

Kavan 1st Buildings have relatively no value and they simply would cost a fortune to restore.

2nd once restored they may not offer the square footage and modern ammenities an investor wants

3rd not even John Miller, a millionaire, has purchased a building downtown so why should anyone?

4th Current property owners such as T ROY are slowing the process to a halt. why does T ROY think he should get $115,000 when a building next door is seling for $5,000. is he waiting for his golden opportunity after everyone else has done the work, its not going to pan out T ROY! If T ROY were interested in the welfare of the town he would pay property taxes more often than once every 5 years.

5th the main strip proxemity to 83 is simply horrible. lets not get stuck on downtown. lets take a break from downtown as to not get hung up on it. I think downtown may be a cancer rotting the town from the center.

6th lets break out the maps. take a look at the current location where that Grandmas restarant sits. better prox, no TROY, fresh start, city hall and closer to the only current investor (John Miller).

Can we do a study on the history of HWY 83 and the existance of Underwood, im interested in just what happened here. im also interested in the change in the average size of farms in the region. Another thing I would like to know more about is the cities population history and why the pop increased or decreased.

I agree that the current downtown is somewhat of a "cancer" for the city. I also feel that right now there are too many buildings on the main street for the city of underwood. I don't think that the city will be able to fill all of the buildings if we try to restore them. I think that 4 or 5 buildings are all that Underwood really needs. I think that it might be a good idea to have the main part of town moved closer to highway 83. This way John Miller's steak house will not have a sort of disconnect from the rest of the city. If we moved the downtown toward the highway, the grain elevators could me more of a gateway into the residential area instead of the actual downtown. I think that having the mainstreet behind those elevators almost blocks them off from the highway instead of being an entry. I don't know if we can make this idea fly with the people of underwood, but I think that it would be the best for the town.

jim