Mayor Riley and the Downtown Partnership Dinner - I'm starting this post with a comment that was left at the end of a very long thread, so that the discussion isn't lost. The question was as follows:

"Interesting comment made last night by Charleston Mayor Joe Riley about Porte Cocheres- don't you think?"

My answer is most definitely. Mayor Riley made many interesting comments, that a Porte Cochere is not a great thing in the middle of a retail/pedestrian street was one of them, and few will disagree, myself included. He also pointed out how some in Charleston obsessed over the horrors of narrowing lane-width (he mentioned as narrow as 7 1/2 to nine feet) when it was necessary to provide space for better retail frontage (I believe he used the word arcade, but can't swear to it, and that was not the form I recall in that specific picture) and how successful that had been in spite of those ojections. Somehow that sounded eerily familiar to me...

He also talked about the sacredness of their waterfront park, and how they don't allow events there, which is something we've argued for here as well. He talked about the importance of their master plan, the importance of defining the form they want, of maintianing a quality retail frontage and relationship to the street, and a number of other things which are precisely what our master plan calls for and our planners have been fighting to preserve. I sat with a number of them, and I can't count the number of times Mayor Riley made a point and they all said YES!! because they were things that are part of our plan and that we are doing and trying to accomplish in the city.

What I enjoyed most, and hope to learn from, was his ability to articulate the large-scale policy issues on a very human scale, down to the individual. I saw that as the man's gift, and probably a big reason he's been in office so long.

Yes, it was an interesting presentation, and as with most things I'm sure many people took away different things depending on their perspective. In the beginning Mayor Riley said he was there to provide reinforcement, and I can certainly say that the members of the planning and engineering staff that were in attendance without question walked away feeling that their efforts had been validated and reinforced, as did I. Who doesn't appreciate that?!

Wal-Mart - To Be Or Not To Be? - I am scheduled this afternoon to hear from representatives of Wal Mart regarding the structure of their proposed Super Center development project at the corner of US 301 and Martin Luther King Jr. Way. Ultimately the City Commission will have to decide whether to make the large city parcel available to Wal Mart for the project. Of course one big plus would be that cleanup of the site, currently a brownfield (former dump site), would be their responsibility. But there is of course the larger question, which is whether a new Super Center is a benefit to the economic development efforts for that area or a barrier. There are very good arguments to be made either way. So far the North Sarasota community seems generally supportive, and Wal Mart has come a long way from just building big plain box stores. My question is, what do you think?