My column in this month’s magazine dealt with the city’s plans to increase density in development — that is, to cram more stuff into the same space. It was mostly a hypothetical discussion, with some thoughts about the difference between good density and bad density.
Apparently, though, I waited too long to write the piece, and all you need to do is to check this out to see why. How does a 20,000 square foot, multi-story retail, bar and and restaurant building on lowest Greenville sound? The site, which is being developed by UCR (big signs are already up), is where the Arcadia move theater was before it burned.
Again, this development is neither good nor bad until we know more about it. And UCR has a good reputation and often does fine work. I’ll make a couple of calls this week to see what’s what, but I have a feeling that it can be built as planned — no zoning approval required.
But some questions do need to be asked:
• Why will this work when the site down the street, 1811 Greenville, has sat mostly empty since it was built? And it caused a huge zoning controversy.
• Does the neighborhood want not just more bars and restaurants, but about twice as many more bars and restaurants than were originally on the site?
• How did this fly under the neighborhood radar? I missed it until I was poking around working on something else, and there are others who pay much more attention to development in that part of town than I do.
