By Scott Unger • Of the News-Register • 

MURAC backs Palindrome for Alpine development

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Comments

Moe

No architectural appeal.
No fun.

Unnatural combination of uses with deliberately inadequate parking suggests tiptoe into the
15-minute city concept.

And that name!
If the name was "Grain," that would be stupid.
"Granum" is even more stupid.
It ain't even American.

Bigfootlives

Nothing spends like other people’s money.

Moe

If the city would have purchased the property for a legitimate reason, such as an equipment yard / repair / storage facility, that would have been ok. But clearly, that was not the case.

All the city had to do was nothing. Ultimate RB would have taken care of itself. Now the city should just admit that it made a mistake. Why not flip the property, perhaps with a change in zoning?

//

Meanwhile, I'll say it again:

Moe's prescription:

1. Go back to old fire district: $1.50 / $1k.
End new fire district.

Appearance is that new fire district was a trick to increase tax authority.

Provide tax credit of at least 3 x $0.50 / $1k until 150% of overpayment. Overpayment defined as taxes collected on old fire district
$1.50 / $1k tax authority after new fire district $ 2.00 / $1k was in effect.

2. End "$13" service fee.
Provide 3 x $13 = $39 credit until 150% of overpayment. Overpayment defined as fees charged since original debt repaid by service fee.

3. No stormwater fee.
City shall repair storm system as needed without imposing new permanent fee.

Oregon Geek

Wow, so much ugly. The architecture style does NOT fit in the neighborhood!

Lulu

The entire design comes across as sterile. Yuck.

Lulu

It looks like an uneasy frigid combination of Industrial/Brutalist architecture.

The Tea Smith

There are aspects of this I really love and other aspects I'm not so fond of. I do feel Palindrome had the least inspired plan and failed to fully utilize the mixed use zoning's potential. I think we have a saturated market for boutique hotels right now and I don't think this will generate the revenue the city thinks it will.

On the other hand though, I'm happy for any mixed use zoning, I think this will only improve the neighborhood and the city and I actually like they are conservative in their parking estimates.

Additional thoughts include: It'd be neat to see full utilization of the space for commercial and residential zoning, so with that in mind I'd love to see the nearby impound lot turned into a parking garage with a possible footbridge over the train tracks.

I think the rubber plant has the potential to prove to everyone in McMinnville the value of mixed-use/medium density zoning, so with that in mind I'd love to see this treated as an ambitious flagship project with the buildings mixing commercial and residential usages and the space being fully utilized to it's full capabilities. I think the space needs to be aesthetic and nice to travel through on your way to other destinations too. Plazas, trees and or garden boxes could accomplish this.

Over all excited about this projects potential even if I'm not overjoyed that they picked the development company who I personally think has this least inspiring/solid plan for the area.

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