Brixx's Beer Special

So we sat outside at Brixx last night with a group of friends and enjoyed Brixx's Saturday night $2.50 beer special. It was a German Lager that I can't remember the name of. Every Saturday night Brixx has a different beer special. Its a great deal and considering that their list of about 30 import beers are all great it is a fantastic way to try out new beers. I also had a vegetarian pizza that was great as well. I have two slices left which I think I'll enjoy once I'm done writing here.
Birkdale's live music band was great last night too. They played a good mix of 80s rock. We really enjoyed the live music and wound up sitting outside until about 11pm. The live music ends at 9:30 PM which seems a little early but I guess that since people live right above the shops it makes sense not to keep them up all night. What we were amazed by is how little of the music we were able to hear as we walked towards the main strip. We figure that since the speakers are pointer towards Sam Furr that the houses behind the village don't get much of the music.
What was nice about last night is that we didn't get to Brixx until about 8:30 PM. Since it was so cool out Birkdale was lively but not packed so we got an outside table right away. Even cooler, is that Brixx has these outdoor gas heaters that throw heat down on the tables so even though it was a little cool out we were quite comfortable. I'm thinking of getting one of these Resnor heaters for my back deck. I wonder how much they run and how hard it is to tap in to the existing gas line?

The Village at Lake Norman

Friend or foe? Will the potential Village at Lake Norman compliment or compete with Birkdale Village. The Huntersville Herald and Urban Planet both have interesting facts and thoughts about the proposed development. 900,000 feet or retail, 300 living units, a new Hwy 77 exit 26, Westmoreland expanded to 4 lanes - Wow! These are some big numbers and changes for what is currently a country road!

The debate online seems to center around whether this will create a traffic nightmare or is this the density that Charlotte needs to have to accommodate the influx of new residents. I'm in favor of the latter, density, only if it means that other lands are set aside for preservation and green space. What is the likelihood of large amounts of green space being preserved? Probably close to Nil. So what I think will happen is that we will have the density and around it we will have the typical sprawl and in the end we will be stuck with horrendous traffic. Sorry if that discourages anyone from moving here but, hopefully, the three towns community can figure out how to build more roads and expand the current greenway plan. Someone on Urban planet made an interesting comment:

"This would mean the Lake area would have Exits, 23, 25, 26, 30, 32, 33, 36. Anywhere else in the state, this would be it's own metro area."

Wow, I did not think of it this way. That is allot of exits in one short stretch of highway!

On the other hand it would be really cool to live in between two awesomely planned mixed use communities and to be able to walk between the two on the McDowell Creek Greenway, click to read previous post. I imagine that if they could incorporate enough commercial space then people could truly live, work, play here North of Charlotte. As soon as a plan for this development comes out then I will try and post it here to this blog.

"When you add in Bryton and the Langtree mixed use new urbanist developments, this means that 2,100,000 sq ft of upscale retail space has been announced for Huntersville, Davidson and Cornelius. If you add in some smaller TOD projects on the proposed rail line, this number rises to about 2.5 million sq. ft. This is an amazing amount of retail if all of it is built "

Another great comment from Urban planet. I also wonder how many Birkdale developments are possible along one stretch of highway. I just remembered that Bryton is being planned between Exits 18 and 23. That too will be a massive mixed use community. It will definitely be interesting to see how this all develops. Of course, I would rather see more Birkdale's then the Harris Blvd strip mall after strip mall style development. If you never go to Harris Blvd then you are probably lucky because it has lots and lots of lights and lots of strip malls.

Of course, my load officer also made a comment that as traffic gets worse people will want to live in mixed use because then they don't HAVE to drive anywhere if they don't want to. Ok, so now that I am wrapping up this random thought debate, I want to add a caveat for any friends from the DC, NY, or Boston metro areas. The traffic here is NOTHING compared to what is normal in those metro areas! We are many years away from being that bad. But I guess that everything is relative.

Peter Gordon's "City Lite" Blog

Peter Gordon's blog has an interesting article that described Birkdale and others like it: Legacy in Plano near Dallas; Atlantic Station near Atlanta; Santana Row near San Francisco. This blog sight relates a WSJ article that talks about New Urban developments that are modeled after traditional downtowns. The gyst of the article is that Birkdale style developments are becoming more popular. Some places like Bishop Road are so large and complete that some residents never need to leave since that place also includes a business park.

As a kid I used to wonder what it would be like to live in a large mall. At the time a new mall had opened near our house and it looked so cool. Now I despise traditional malls as loud, noisy, traffic nightmares. I guess that someday people will live on Mars on indoor malls. In retrospect what attracted me about malls was the action and the sense of life. I think Birkdale and developments like it offer the sense of life with the ability to enjoy the outdoors and to do more than just shop. This is an interesting quote about Birkdale style development vs the traditional mall:

"Only one mall has opened in 2006, according to the International Council of Shopping Centers, a New York City-based trade group. By contrast, more than 60 so-called lifestyle centers -- outdoor shopping areas with plazas, fountains and pedestrian streets -- are planned to open this year and next."

I wonder if that one mall was Northlake of Highway 77, Exit 18?