when water street extended from swann creek to riversidee park it was an important road. development over the last fifty years has taken care of that and ensured it will never be continuous in our life time.
i think johio83 mis-spoke - levis square is on the st clair side of where madison use to come through. i think johio83 meant the old federal building site.
here is what i would like to have happen:
- close off water street between monroe and madison. get rid of the parking lot behind fort industry square and extend promenade park along the waterfront there as well and connect that to bochenstein park ACROSS monroe. this will make the park/path complete from the erie street market all the way to the MLK bridge.
- on the old federal building site, build a facility that:
a - has loads of bathrooms and concession booths built into the facade on the side facing promenade park - for the love of god, lets be classier than rows of port o lets being what people look at when they look from summit down onto the park.
b - keeping jefferson and madison as stub streets, build a large multi-level parking garage on the internal portion of the structure. this, built now, could take over the terrible eyesore garage that exists across the street and provide the parking fort industry is going to need in exchange for losing their surface lot - it will also serve promenade the convention center and the arena very well.
c - on the summit street side, build the structure in a manner that would allow office/retail store fronts to be built in at ground lelvel eventually as demand increases - yes we do have to be optimistic and believe that day will come.
- extend madison through from st clair to summit. the number of roads shut off in downtown in the last couple decades requires this. we have greatly limited peoples ability get around by car which over stresses those few streets/paths that do remain. this would help every business and acticty in downtown.