Maplewood Fresh News

https://ohno60.files.wordpress.com/2015/11/best-downtown-ever-sunday1.pdf

Please stop. This is so pathetic. Even the title is misleading. It should read: Horse, dead and beaten. 

https://ohno60.files.wordpress.com/2015/11/best-downtown-ever-sunday1.pdf

Unless a veritable mob crowds the next few Planning Board and Township Committee meetings, there will be no more options- this lousy deal, which our mayor has railroaded through while roughriding over local law, will be complete.

OhNo calls for mob rule.  Stupid and shameful.

paulsurovell said:
https://ohno60.files.wordpress.com/2015/11/best-downtown-ever-sunday1.pdf

Unless a veritable mob crowds the next few Planning Board and Township Committee meetings, there will be no more options- this lousy deal, which our mayor has railroaded through while roughriding over local law, will be complete.

OhNo calls for mob rule.  Stupid and shameful.

And uses language that implies our mayor has not been acting with integrity.  It is shameful. 

By the way, those crappy reuse drawings look hideous.   

Hail Mary.

I love the shout-out to South Orange Village and their "sensitivity." The new building going up at 3rd and Valley in South Orange has more than 200 apartments. The new building in Maplewood will have 20. Can you imagine the stink ohno would make about 200 new apartments a block from downtown?

Disappointing to see the prominent use of the Township seal, which incorrectly implies that this is an official publication distributed by the Township government.

deborahg said:
I love the shout-out to South Orange Village and their "sensitivity." The new building going up at 3rd and Valley in South Orange has more than 200 apartments. The new building in Maplewood will have 20. Can you imagine the stink ohno would make about 200 new apartments a block from downtown?

But selling off town hall would be lovely.  Because, you know, there's nothing like selling off your iconic town hall to for budgetary reasons and putting in a beer garden.  That wouldn't arise any ire or anything.   Nah.   

You just cannot make this stuff up.  

Many of us agree that it is disappointing that SO sold the building.  Would have been better to keep it and find a new use...and hypocritical that you all criticize that and yet think it is fine for Maplewood to sell a piece of it's public land, with a historic provenance...Ricalton and all.

The huge developments in SO are eyesores, over-scaled and overwhelming of the train station.  Many in SO have expressed that already.  Maplewood will soon look similar...unfortunately.

And many in SO welcome the new developments. So... the point is? That residents in the same town disagree over their townships direction? What's new with that? I don't see the South Orange residents rising up to sue the township and obstruct the project.

OliveBee said:
Many of us agree that it is disappointing that SO sold the building.  Would have been better to keep it and find a new use...and hypocritical that you all criticize that and yet think it is fine for Maplewood to sell a piece of it's public land, with a historic provenance...Ricalton and all.
The huge developments in SO are eyesores, over-scaled and overwhelming of the train station.  Many in SO have expressed that already.  Maplewood will soon look similar...unfortunately.

https://maplewood.worldwebs.com/forums/discussion/id/122320-Third-and-Valley-Question?page=5#new-comment-form

Woot said:

By the way, those crappy reuse drawings look hideous.   

I like the way they look. Build it up!

Turning your town hall into a beer garden sounds like the best thing any government has done ever. We'll welcome any Mwooders that want to defect!

DaveSchmidt said:

Woot said:

By the way, those crappy reuse drawings look hideous.   

I like the way they look. Build it up!

Agreed, those sketches look super cool to me. Something like that would be an amazing addition to Maplewood Village. It's one of an almost infinite number of alternative plans that could have, under different circumstances, worked nicely on the site. But that isn't the way the town decided to go, and there are all sorts of practical reasons for that decision (which have been discussed endlessly here, as we all know). Rather than continuing to dream up fantastic pie-in-the-sky alternate possibilities, it's time--it's well PAST time--to embrace the reality that we have and move forward with it rather than endlessly speculating about what could have been in some alternate universe. 

OliveBee said:
The huge developments in SO are eyesores, over-scaled and overwhelming of the train station.  Many in SO have expressed that already.  Maplewood will soon look similar...unfortunately.

I don't see how you can compare the proposed Post House to those MUCH larger developments in SO.  I get that you don't like the building as proposed.  I'm ambivalent myself.  But it is NOTHING like those large complexes in SO and I see no evidence that it will fundamentally change Maplewood Village.

As I talk to people around town, it seems that the vast majority of people feel the same way I do about the whole thing.

So can't you all just give it a rest?

ctrzaska said:

deborahg said:
I love the shout-out to South Orange Village and their "sensitivity." The new building going up at 3rd and Valley in South Orange has more than 200 apartments. The new building in Maplewood will have 20. Can you imagine the stink ohno would make about 200 new apartments a block from downtown?

But selling off town hall would be lovely.  Because, you know, there's nothing like selling off your iconic town hall to for budgetary reasons and putting in a beer garden.  That wouldn't arise any ire or anything.   Nah.   
You just cannot make this stuff up.  

If you think this was a bad deal, then you haven't been paying enough attention.  Our Village Hall was an economic sinkhole, but a facade that we wanted preserved, in spite of the poor layout and high renovation cost.  "Iconic", but not a great Village Hall for the modern era.

We were lucky enough to discover that an absolutely top-notch restaurant group with a record of successes and community service was interested in making a destination of it (upscale steak place with beer garden, I believe), which is very good for our downtown, creating a living anchor between the two ends of South Orange Avenue, rather than a low traffic public building in the middle of our commercial district.

DaveSchmidt said:

Woot said:

By the way, those crappy reuse drawings look hideous.   

I like the way they look. Build it up!

OK so the drawing shows set back second and third floors added to a one story building not designed for extra floors. So how is that structure going to work. Seems like piers would need to be put through the first floor basically making it unusable. Drawing a sketch does not make a building.

bramzzoinks said:

DaveSchmidt said:

Woot said:

By the way, those crappy reuse drawings look hideous.   

I like the way they look. Build it up!

I don't like the way it looks.  But if it was the plan agreed to after a fair and open process, I'd certainly accept it.

Those drawings really have a Soviet look to them. 

that's just the influence of Paul Rudolph. 

mjh said:

bramzzoinks said:

DaveSchmidt said:

Woot said:

By the way, those crappy reuse drawings look hideous.   

I like the way they look. Build it up!

I don't like the way it looks.  But if it was the plan agreed to after a fair and open process, I'd certainly accept it.

Same with me.  If that was the result of all these years of planning, I'd be fine with it.  I'd have been disappointed that we didn't take advantage of the opportunity to open up access from Durand to Baker, but I could live with it.

susan1014 said:

ctrzaska said:

deborahg said:
I love the shout-out to South Orange Village and their "sensitivity." The new building going up at 3rd and Valley in South Orange has more than 200 apartments. The new building in Maplewood will have 20. Can you imagine the stink ohno would make about 200 new apartments a block from downtown?

But selling off town hall would be lovely.  Because, you know, there's nothing like selling off your iconic town hall to for budgetary reasons and putting in a beer garden.  That wouldn't arise any ire or anything.   Nah.   
You just cannot make this stuff up.  

If you think this was a bad deal, then you haven't been paying enough attention.  Our Village Hall was an economic sinkhole, but a facade that we wanted preserved, in spite of the poor layout and high renovation cost.  "Iconic", but not a great Village Hall for the modern era.
We were lucky enough to discover that an absolutely top-notch restaurant group with a record of successes and community service was interested in making a destination of it (upscale steak place with beer garden, I believe), which is very good for our downtown, creating a living anchor between the two ends of South Orange Avenue, rather than a low traffic public building in the middle of our commercial district.

Bad deal financially?  Never said that-- it clearly is the best approach, and that's the point.  I'm quite familiar with other ventures of the group, and they should be a great asset to SO-- I'll be there with bells on when they open.

But... the entire transaction was driven by purely financial considerations-- nothing more, nothing less.  Would that SO had the budgetary capacity to keep the building designated for municipal use, recognizing the extensive work to modernize, rearrange, and to accommodate the necessary meetings, a restaurant wouldn't be coming in.  But you don't.  So one is.  But OhNo conveniently ignores the financial angle in their missive, instead focusing on only the superficiality of "reuse" presented by the new plans, and only here mentions their displeasure with other town land being tossed to developers to build behemoths.   (PILOTs? What PILOTs?  No mention of those either.)  Cherry-picking from the lowest branches at its finest.