Lincolnite

That’s dissapointing to hear about the plaza. Do you think it would be easier to turn the centennial mall into green space? That would be nice, and all that concrete is starting to crack and make the place look like kind of an eyesore. What a waste of what could have been some nice greenspace in downtown. As it is now it just amounts to a parking lot (without the cars) with some useless fountains.

The original plans called for a quarter-block of green space, not a quarter-block of building with a patch of green space in the middle.

I just checked the Lincoln Downtown Master Plan. According to the Plan, the Civic Square will “(o)ccupy all but 30 feet of the existing Douglas Theater site at the northeast corner of P and 13th.” None of the drawings include anything resembling “a four- to five-story building filled with retail shops on the ground floor and possibly offices or housing on upper floors.”

So the question becomes, is Deena Winter (the author of the LJS piece) confused? Is she referring to the existing neighboring buildings, one of which is only one-story and the other is three? Or has somebody’s vision advanced beyond the scope of the Plan?

I wrote too soon. Ms. Winter must be referring to some of the Plan’s much more remote (and much more ambitious) goals related to the complete overhaul of the P Street retail corridor. I’m being as courteous as I can when I say those goals are incredibly optimistic.

Can someone help me understand the obsession with green space?  Sure, it gives people somewhere to walk to and hang out at, but that was the intent of the Centennial Mall also, and we know what has happened to that.  Green space = waste of space.

Properly implemented, open spaces—not just green spaces—can be powerful generators of human activity, and thus social and economic activity. To equate open space with wasted space is a gross overgeneralization. But open spaces are very difficult to do well. Centennial Mall is an excellent example of open space done poorly; Union Plaza on the University of Nebraska-Lincoln campus, an example of open space done very well.

If you want to learn more about what will make or break Lincoln’s civic plaza, start with William H. Whyte’s fantastic film, The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces.

Like you said, the green space has to be ‘done well’ in order to be successful.  The City of Lincoln hasn’t demonstrated a significant amount of creativity lately, a point most obvious in the development of 48th and O.  So I don’t think trusting them with green space downtown is a great idea. 

UNL planners, on the other hand, can be trusted.  Campus has really gotten some significant facelifts in recent years, and campus is becoming amazing.  I loved playing barefoot soccer in the plaza in between classes.

Mr. Wilson,

I interpreted it the same way you initially interpreted it. I have a cartoon running on this issue tomorrow, so when I saw this, and your revised assessment, I was a little worried that my cartoon was based on a flawed assumption.

So I called Deena Winter and asked her specifically where this 4-to-5 story building was going to be, and it was her understanding that this new building was going to also be squeezed into the area of the Douglas 3 (therefore it’s an addition to the official master plan) and basically L-shaped, bordering the civic plaza on the north and the east.

Also, regarding the nature of the civic plaza, from the meetings that Crandall Arambula held, it was my understanding that this civic plaza would not be greenspace - it would be a surfaced open area, based largely on the open block in dowtown Portland, where CA is based.

Thanks for checking on that, Neal. I look forward to seeing your cartoon tomorrow.

...it was my understanding that this civic plaza would not be greenspace…

I goofed in my post when I referred to it was greenspace. I should have instead called it open space.