We desperately need a park downtown and, even more importantly, we need to protect the beautiful historical Basilica and its environment. [See Asheville City Council member Marc Hunt’s open letter about the Basilica of Saint Lawrence land offer at http://avl.mx/9w.]
A high-rise would risk the fragile Basilica and dwarf it to the point of disrespect, smothering its beauty. Continuing to add additional high-rise hotels downtown is also going to continue to destroy the ambience of the historical downtown that the entire area depends on for tourist dollars.
— Jeannie Summer Rain
Swannanoa
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Wow, we just can’t contemplate change around here can we? The land in question is primarily eye-sore parking. A solid hotel on the property would be a tremendous asset and add to the density we need.
Density should be downtown to enable the ongoing development of a public transportation system that can sustain frequencies that gain riders. Largely hourly service will never allow public transportation to become a meaningful component of out transportation mix.
Last, the risk element is a red herring. The Basilica has previously favored construction projects much closer to the facility that entailed some risk, but there stake was perhaps different in those efforts.
1. Does Asheville desperately need a downtown park?
2. How does another building close by threaten the “fragility” of the Basilica? Why do you think it is “fragile”?
3. How does anybody “disrespect” a building?
This myopic view of preserving singular interests is tiresome. Somebody at some time had to decide to “disrespect” somebody else’s building by constructing the Basilica in the first place. Every building downtown had to have some impetus of thought to come into being. Perhaps the letter writer prefers an urban preserve with nothing else allowed to intrude except those things that satisfy her personal desires i.e. a downtown park. On the other hand there may be several other interests that prefer continued growth and change in the downtown area. It is that constant growth and change that over many years has created the ambiance that attracts tourists. If the building is wisely designed and constructed, it should add to the character of Asheville. I see no reason why it would be any less beneficial than a “playground”.
“We desperately need a park downtown”
There is a park downtown. It is called Pritchard Park.
Yeah, Pritchard Park. It’s a park downtown.
Right. We cant build housing downtown. It needs to be a museum, or a tourist theme park.
Better to build more sprawling developments outside the city limits, destroying farmland and wildlife habitat, since no tourists care about that, and they hardly even contribute to the economy.
How about something that generates income for the owners and tax revenue for the city? Parks don’t do either. Ms. Summer Rain, have you ever visited a metropolis like, say–NYC? Somehow, with all those evil high-rises and churches and brownstones crammed in together–it all works. People come to NYC from all over the world. I went there once, never heard anyone say, “You know, that building doesn’t look good next to THAT building.”