Pieces of the neighborhood
This is some good work by the crew at the Saint Rose Chronicle looking at the college's real estate holdings, specifically the buildings -- more than 16 percent -- that are currently vacant. One of the tangents from the article is just how big a role the college now plays in the real estate of the Pine Hills neighborhood. The Saint Rose campus now includes a total of 89 buildings, according the Chronicle's reporting. [The Chronicle]
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There is a mutually beneficial deal for the school and the city to be had. Both need money.
School should sell off some of their land to a private developer to develop portions of the campus into mixed use, dense housing. As a part of the deal a lease on some percentage of the of the newly created units is worked out to provide new student housing over the long term. Developer gets to rent/sell the rest. School gets an influx of cash, new housing units so they can stop paying to heat all those individual houses separately, and a new neighborhood students may want to live in. Developer gets to develop.
The City in return for the graciousness of St. Rose getting some of its currently untaxable land onto the rolls and some new housing stock would agree to height, parking and density variances required to make the project viable (though why stop at just viable?).
And the CDTA, maybe in return for some sort of pilot agreement, bumps the 114 up to trunk level service, reducing the need for parking in this denser neighborhood (and coincidentally giving us the trunk connection to Rens Rail that's been lacking for so long, Gondola or not).
Seriously though, that eastern half of Pine Hills should be the densest part of the city. Students don't need cars, it's relatively flat and walkable, and it's on every major bus line.
... said Mueller on Dec 5, 2017 at 3:13 PM | link