The Albany City Council thinks the city would benefit from a downtown parking study, and it has commissioned one at a contracted cost of no more than $42,803.
Last October, the Albany City Council authorized the city staff to negotiate to buy the former Wells Fargo Bank branch at First Avenue and Broadalbin Street. On Friday, the city closed on the purchase for $1.5 million.
The fabled “cheese grater” on Albany’s First Avenue — a sign of progress in the 1960s and now considered an architectural atrocity — is staying up there, at least for now.
A couple of days before Christmas I took a shortcut through a downtown alley. This made me think of one of the forgotten goals of the Central Albany Revitalization Area.
After years of talking about it, Albany is trying to follow its neighbors on the Willamette River by stimulating redevelopment of its riverfront. The first step — you guessed it — is finding a consultant.
Albany’s urban renewal agency will try to buy a downtown property. They don’t want the public to know which one, but it sounds like the building and parking lot of the former Wells Fargo branch on First Avenue.
So what comes next for CARA, the central Albany urban renewal district? Mayor Sharon Konopa has an idea, and she mentioned it Saturday at the completion ceremony of the city’s two-year downtown streetscape project.
Eleven years after it got involved with the former Labor Temple on Third Avenue, the Albany City Council this week ended the city’s role by voting to sell the building.
On a stroll in downtown Albany the other evening, the buildings on this corner caught my eye. They show off the efforts of downtown owners to upgrade their buildings with the help of urban renewal.
EV charging stations downtown?
Should the Central Albany Revitalization Area provide charging stations for electric cars downtown? The CARA advisory board will get a chance to talk about that idea when it meets on Wednesday afternoon.
Tags: CARA, charging stations, electric vehicles