Flooding at Echo Harbor site

This supports what someone who works for one of the organizations lobbying against EH told me: Echo Harbor is actually just an elaborate ruse by the developers to sell off their land that can’t be used because it’s on a flood plain.

Echo Harbor will happen. Lets discuss that.

#4, supposedly they plan to build a bridge so that emergency vehicles can access the building in the event of flooding. I don’t know where the residents are supposed to park – under the building would mean they’d be parking in a flooded parking area unless the building is built really high on stilts.

#4 what do you base your statement on? I’d be curious, if nothing else, as to why you are so certain, please elaborate, thanks.

Miss Anne please specify which 900 jobs this project could create? are you aware of the costs that the developer would like the city to cover in moving the sewage treatment overflow pipes that currently run under the property and can not be built on, or the improvements to the right of ways or the cost of the emergency personnel that will have to respond each and every time this property is flooded. Or the fact that no one there will be able to insure there units, and of course the immense public safety issues involved in building in a floodway. Check out the FEMA warnings against building in area like this. Any one remember Gaston or Katrina. The developers can say anything they want about how much money their projects will generate but it is all smoke and shadows, for example does anyone truly believe the flying squirrels will generate $40 million a year.

Thanks for the photos. I was going to ride my bike downtown for a meeting today, and that’s my route. Good thing my tire was flat!

If I was in the market for a place to live, photos like this would be pretty persuasive. Sure, some annual flooding in a park can be tolerated. But not in my house. And that’s aside from whatever’s going on in the real estate market at large–which right now includes a lot of deals on existing homes.

To #4: I can think of a lot of other projects around the city that would generate jobs, directly benefit the public, and be way less hairbrained than Echo Harbor.

Maybe it is 900 maids to service the wealthy condo owners?

This construction location is full of fail and aids. You can spend millions trying to push mother nature back, but in the end she always wins. This is coming from an engineer…

I’m posting this as a 24 year resident of Church Hill.

Let’s dissect a few statements.

“Sometime in the last ten years, the lower parking area for Tobacco Row was flooded, and the residents had to park up on Main Street…I doubt they were too happy with that. Oh, wait – maybe they like having to be inconvenienced?”

…Sort of like the inconvenience of snow, isn’t it? Time to move to Miami. Oops, nix that-hurricanes are a problem. Maybe Kansas? Nah, tornadoes. I’ve got it! Sunny California….no wait, earthquakes, massive fires and then mudslides.

“Keith: an architect with Baskervill *would* make the statement “Putting parking decks in a flood plain are perfectly acceptable uses of flood plains.” It makes perfect sense if you are doing the plans for the development and expect to make money from same.”

And if said architect did make money from the project, is that a crime? At least the Baskervill is local (unlike Rocketts Landing was), are located in the Slip and they have been in Richmond since 1897. Guess where I spend my money? In the city.

I won’t even discuss how easy it is to solve the engineering issues as it takes an open mind to do that.

However, if the surrounding businesses made money from EH residents, I guess that would be bad as well? We could place signs at the door of each business stating who was allowed to make purchases there. The businesses could set up their own defacto boycott of EH. (Let me know how well that works.)

A number of Baskervill employees live in Church Hill and Tobacco Row, perhaps they would appreciate the payroll salary that comes from this project? Would their opinions count? Does their spending capacity count?

Should I go on for those that would benefit? Building material suppliers, contractors, attorneys, title agents, couriers, printing houses, advertisers and marketers, groceries, restaurants, retailers, insurance salesman, interior designers, maintenance providers, repair shops, bars, the City tax base (maybe we could buy a snowplow?), furniture dealers, real estate agents….

And don’t even get me started about the much used “multiplier effect” is used to determine true economic impact.

I’d be willing to trade a couple of days of not accessing the lowest portion of the parking deck for a riverfront view. It’s sort how I trade living in the city knowing that my streets won’t get adequately plowed, my potholes won’t get fixed, my taxes and crime are higher. Go figure that one out.

I do vote with my wallet. I stopped going to several restaurants in the Slip when they publicly came out in support of the food tax on prepared food. Perhaps the opponents of EH could post where they work so I could stop sending business to their establishments? I’d simply send their bosses a little note explaining my position just so they would understand why I no longer patronize them.

I find Church Hill to be very tolerant of diverse opinions….as long as your opinion agrees with them. Otherwise, look out for the proverbial knife in the back.

What an awful place for a park too. Can you imagine the costs incurred by taxpayers having to repair public property every single time it floods? We’d put millions of taxpayer dollars into the purchase and development of this property only to have the trails and landscaping washed out, trash, trees, and docks from upriver needing removal, and flooded public restrooms to repair… what a nightmare. Best we just leave it as a weedy, abandoned lot.

its not going to be a park. it will be ECHO HARBOR……………….