I think Garber was supposed to be there, but he did not make it. Guess he got stuck in traffic I only remember seeing Abbott in the pictures. This tweet, I think, confirms he was not there. Everyone is here except commissioner don garber #austinfc #mls #mckalla pic.twitter.com/1CpJyw4FAy— Michelle Sánchez (@MichelleS_tv) September 9, 2019
Compared to what tonyqueso got in Austin, I think our stadium is in a great location, especially if we get a bridge and maybe a road to Franklinton. Its at the confluence of Downtown, Franklinton, Arena District, Victorian Village, and reasonably close to Campus and Grandview. I cannot wait to drink some Massive IPA, tailgate, and march into the stadium from franklinton.
Eh, I've looked at the maps. It will be tough to get a usable road over to Franklinton. They had enough trouble back in the day fixing 315 and the intersections down there with 670 and other roads. I mean, it would be nice. But don't hold your breath. Parking will be a challenge. You think getting out of Mapfre is tough--wait until the Jackets, Clippers, and Crew all play on the same night. Now, they will do their best to avoid that--but it wont be perfect. It's a decent spot--but it's also far from perfect.
There are already a few nights a year that the Clippers, Jackets and a concert are all going on. Traffic is heavy, but the area is designed to be able to release traffic in multiple directions. Those nights are few and far between anyway. The stadium is in a perfect location.
I'm sure it's also the case that, for a stadium that seats only 20k, the eyes wide open strategy is that the club will be willing to lose X number of existing fans, if it thinks it can replace them with XX number of new fans, especially if tickets are more expensive in the new stadium. Related to the above, it seems a lead pipe certainty that corporate/luxury box sales will blow out of the water anything that would ever have been achievable at the fairgrounds. So, yeah, some people, including some long-time fans, may actually be turned off by the new location. But in this case (paraphrasing here), the revenue-generating potential of the many outweigh the inconveniences of the few. And there's no way in hell there will be a road to Franklinton. Nor should there be, IMHO. I'll admit, though, that if the city doesn't build a bike/pedestrian connection between the AD and Franklinton, I don't really know how the hell I'll get to/from the stadium. Driving to the Arena District seems almost unimaginable. The bus, maybe? Perhaps some entrepreneurial types will arrange for shuttles between establishments on the near west side (Endeavor, for example) and a drop-off point near the new pedestrian bridge near Confluence Park.
I'd forgotten about the concert venue(s) down there (where they have held Crew events), but the concerts there are not that large. But let's be realistic. The location, simply due to the railroad tracks in and around the area, is not "perfect". If it were, it would have already been built on. The original plan 20 years ago, would have been a better spot (about where the Union Station arch is now). But--it's been built on already. Then you have the nearby spaghetti of the Spring-Sandusky Interchange, which makes access to Franklinton a challenge--oh, and more rail on the Franklinton side. I think we will get something pretty decent at the end of the day. But "perfect location"? No.
work retreat that day, and they have blocked off THE WHOLE DAY for time off. I'm doing some gold old fashioned brown nosing but we will see.
We'll need good public transit. That's one of the things that made the stadium situation in my hometown of Philly workable--back in the day, I usually took the train/subway down from the suburbs. But even there, there's lots of parking. There won't be here. That said, if everything is busy on the same night, that's a max of about 60K.
There will be pedestrian walkways from Grandview Yard and Franklinton. Plenty of parking to the east in the Arena District. I wouldn't be surprised to see Confluence Park build a bridge, but that might not even be necessary with the bike trail already going right through. My family has owned industrial property in Franklinton for 50 years and I have spent a good amount of my time working in the area. I think it's perfect but understand your issues.
There are all kinds of lots/parking in the AD. Huge garage next to Nationwide. Building another huge one on Front across from North Market. Corporate garage on Front S of Nationwide. And there is the Convention Center. Open lots behind Brothers. Behind the LC. And those corporate lots between Nationwide & 33 offer event parking all the time. Now, availability could be an issue. And I do not know about cooking out. But I suspect if you arrive at 5:30 on gameday, getting a spot won't be hard. CBJ arrive late & that is before the concert crowd. As for Franklinton, there is a road already. Rich over the river. Left on Marconi. Your route of choice into the Arena D. Left on Nationwide.
Anything from Grandview Yards is going to have to cross both 315 and 670 and tracks. That won't be cheap. Goodale and Vine are pretty much on/off ramps in that area. And, it's not that close to the site. I'm one that likes to walk (I'm cheap--and I like to walk anyway), so I've been walking in from a number of locations around Nationwide for some years now. Columbus is pretty heavily a "car culture" town. That's a lot of issues for "perfect". Best possible at this time? That I'd agree with.
That's close to two miles. 1.5 at least. Some people will do that. I might. I walk in from N 4th and 19th most games. But I'm not everyone. Tailgating? Not gonna happen--at least not like today.... Parking garages, grills, and cars do not mix well with insurance companies and lawyers. YMMV
There is already a bike trail from Grandview Yard past the new White Castle headquarters and down into the AD. Not hard to put a branch down to the stadium site. And I have lived here my whole life so I understand the car culture, but the bike access has come a long way in the last few years with dedicated paths from all over, trails starting off McKinley that link up that side of Franklinton to the rest of the downtown trails. I'm down there everyday. Did you see the bike bridge from the Grandview Ave exit of 670 that now goes along the river all the way downtown?
Bike is nice--you have a longer range with a bike too (though I am not a rider). But most folks here were talking about pedestrian access. We'll see. Again, I think the city/Crew will be able to do something pretty good. But that's not going to be easy. It's a challenging site. Mind you, from what I understand, Minneapolis had similar issues with the Twins stadium when they built it--they did manage to shoehorn it in--and it works pretty well. But it wasn't easy. or perfect.
The bike trails can be used for pedestrian access. If you look at the MORPC bike trail map, the trails already run adjacent to the site.
Maybe so, but there will need to be some infrastructural improvements. Grandview Yard, for example. To walk from, say, Hofbrauhaus to the stadium: I suppose you'd go down Goodale; connect down to the Olentangy Trail; and walk further down to the new pedestrian bridge that'll cross the river to W. Nationwide. It's not bad, about 1 1/4 miles. But I don't think the bike path is lighted at night, which will be a problem post-game unless that's addressed. And, yeah, I continue to hope that the bridge gets built connecting the Scioto Peninsula to the AD, but no renderings have shown it thus far. If it does get built, it'll also be in the 1 1/4-1 to 1/2 mile length walk from, say, Land Grant to the new stadium, depending on the bridge location. For me: problem solved. These improvements won't be free, but they seem so obvious and cost effective that I'll be shocked, disappointed and pissed if they don't happen. Based on what was said last winter about the cost of building parking garages in the city, these modest improvements would cost less than one garage and would open up not just the site but the entire AD to several thousand additional parking spaces. I mean, duh. Finally, here's the thing, too: I'm a little tired of cutting across railroad tracks, through muddy fields, dodging traffic and stepping over broken bottles near Lowe's and former Big Boy, and sharing a chain link fence opening with vehicles as I enter the Mapfre site. So, no, I don't want to find some technically possible route to walk from Franklinton or Grandview to the stadium. We supposedly live in a great, ascendant "smart" city. Fastest growing city in the Midwest. Booming local economy. Over $1B in new development in the downtown, and thousands of apartments getting built down there. I want a ********ing pedestrian bridge that anticipates my desire to be downtown and encourages me to attend events there. Not a "weave you way through a labyrinth of streets and alleys until you finally reach the stadium" option.
I agree--but the site is rather challenging. As you note, even direct routes are more than a mile (and from the Arena itself down to the stadium site is about a half mile). I will be interested in seeing what they come up with (Spring-Sandusky was once thought to be "unsolvable"--and that works fairly well now).
Yep, we'll see. As a tax payer, what I also like about these improvements is that they're useful year-round. It might help me get to a Crew game. But it'll also help bikers and walkers get to this part of the city for concerns, ballgames, festivals, to hang out at the new riverside park that'll be created, or a hundred other things.