...just a thought:
Is Dave Hall Plaza that unpopular that no one is organizing to try to save it? Or even vocalizing much of a protest or regret?
Or has the notion that this is bit of urban greenery is temporary been sufficiently internalized within the body politic so that plans to remove it are met with a shrug?
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Freindless Dave Hall Plaza
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8 comments:
Are you launching davehallplaza.com, Jeff, to counter balance downtowndaytonarena.com?
I'm more than concerned that nobody seems to care, although to be honest I'd be surprised if anyone even knew the name of the park at all. The plaza IS underutilized and it doesn't get a lot of attention even on the sunniest of days. Would you expect a pair of business men to go down on their lunch break and play frizbee? If only. it's the closest thing Dayton has to a "central park," I will voice my objection to putting an arena there to anyone I think it would make a difference to.
Well don't expect any sympathy from the Most Metroids! They're obcessed with brick and mortar--actually vinyl 'n plastic.
I'm certainly not opposed to an ice rink if that's really what the people want; even those who I thought would not want the park torn out seem willing to put SOMETHING there. I'm not saying it's necessarily a bad idea to have one downtown, but why there? If it's to give it a more centralized location, than it's central to nothing.
Is it for all the nightlife it would eventually bring? I would be more convinced of that if 5/3rd field garnered any sort of attention in that regard. With Brix being the only place nearby that I can think of that probably benefits from 5/3rd, I can't imagine much will come of it. Ask the resturants near the Schuster and Victoria if they are busy much other than before or after a show. And walking distance to Hockey is not going to be a draw for people to live downtown.
Maybe they think it's a good way to get people excited about downtown in general, and this I sympathize with, as I'm sure we all do. Is it going to fix things? No, and I think it's a short sighted decision.
f you turn off the splash pool fountain and close the hot dog stand and remove the flowers there won't be any activity at Riverscape either. 5 Rivers actively programs that space to make it a draw.
Dave Hall Plaza just has those three festivals, and attending them sold me on what a nice place it really is. If I hadn't become a regular each summer I probably wouldn't have cared that much.
It's just a pleasant venue for things. I could see having an alternative rock festival there, too. And maybe a fall art show with some live performaces as part of the show.
You know, the only real benefit this site has for an arena is that it's across the street from that parking garage, which is an ass-backwards way of planning things. One has to appreciate the irony: the parking garage is going to kill its neighbor the park.
I think the festivals at DHP would work nicely at Island MetroPark instead. It's just up the bike path from downtown (~1 mile). While I hate to lose a park in downtown, I think this location needs density to conect the CBD to the convention center and Oregon District. I think a facility there would be a boom for local residents as well as help attract more meetings to the convention center complex.
"I think this location needs density to conect the CBD to the convention center and Oregon District. I think a facility there would be a boom for local residents as well as help attract more meetings to the convention center complex."
These are all rationalizations.
The problem with Oregon is that its under a railroad viaduct and across a busy intersection and on the other side of a parking garage from downtown. The convention center connection is pretty questionable, too.
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