As you may have heard, the ever popular Krispy Kreme doughnut establishment will be locating in Miracle Mile between the old department store building (North end) and TGI Fridays.

(For more info, see the April 9 Post-Bulletin article Rochester to get Krispy Kreme store -- online subscription required).

We received relatively short notice on this development as it will be heard for the first time in the form of a public hearing this Wednesday, April 28th at 7 p.m. before the Planning and Zoning Commission in the City Council chambers. It is an exciting prospect to have such a profitable business coming to our neighborhood and it will likely do a lot of good for Miracle Mile which is a wonderful amenity to have within walking distance of our neighborhood. In addressing the Krispy Kreme development, we do have a few concerns. I will list them here, but please understand, the KPNA will not be opposing this development, only asking that the Planning and Zoning Commission address the following:

1. Traffic and Circulation: Krispy Kreme's are notorious for large amounts of traffic, especially during the first six months of operation. How will this affect traffic on already heavily used one-way streets through Kutzky Park? What can we do to deter traffic through the neighborhood to Miracle Mile as one of the entrance/exit points lead directly onto 1st Street NW? When HWY 52 is completed at the 2nd Street SW exit, will there be convenient enough accesss from the frontage road or will traffic be sent down 16th Avenue?

2. Pedestrian access and urban compatibility: we live in a pedestrian oriented, urban neighborhood. Currently it looks as if the Krispy Kreme is designed to engage business from the highway, but not the neighborhood. The 'front' of the building in terms of design is toward the highway, and the trash enclosure and loading dock appear to be facing the neighborhood. Walkability doesn't appear to have been considered as the development has accommodations for significant drive-through business. How can the back of the building include more sensitive design so the neighborhood doesn't get one more trash enclosure to look at? How can we invite the neighborhood in and make it a place to walk to? How can we give equal access to pedestrians to help balance the heavy vehicle traffic expected?

The sign facing the highway appears to be about 40 feet tall.

(Click the image for a larger view of the architectural sketch.) Currently, Miracle Mile (from the front) has quite a pedestrian and neighborhood feel to it. The sidewalk and overhang/canopy encourage one to walk the length of the mall when visiting multiple shops. The Krispy Kreme seems to be taking the 'big box' approach that may discourage the more neighborhood friendly atmosphere Miracle Mile currently brings. We want to make sure the development isn't heading toward a large, suburban model such as Kohl's or Wal-Mart.

Again, we are not opposing the development, but through sensitive design, landscaping, signage and pedestrian access want to ensure that it is appropriate for an urban neighborhood shopping district. Anybody concerned with preserving the residential quality and livability of the neighborhood is strongly encouraged to attend the Planning and Zoning Commission hearing. You will not be asked to speak ( unless you want to! ) but the biggest show of support will be your presence. The effectiveness of our testimony depends on a show of support from the neighborhood at the meeting. This proposal is near the beginning on the public hearing agenda so it should not be a lengthy meeting.

See the agenda for the April 28th Planning and Zoning Commission meeting and view the staff report or site plan for the proposed Krispy Kreme, item E2 on the agenda (18 page, slow-loading PDF doc).

Posted by Stephanie at 1:58 PM | Link

 
Since many of the pages from the old web site are indexed by search engines, we've installed a special 404 Not Found page that gets served up if site visitors try to access web pages that no longer exist.

For example, if you do a Google search on "August Kutzky" (this will soon change however, after Google's search spider visits the site again), you may see that Google serves up the URL http://www.kutzkypark.org/history.htm -- one that no longer exists on our server.

Posted by Griff at 9:29 PM | Link

 
The History page (Kutzky Park Neighborhood) and the About Us page (Kutzky Park Neighborhood Association - KPNA) are now up.

Posted by Griff at 9:09 PM | Link

 
You can now contact Stephanie Kilen via her new email address, using the form on the Contact Us page.

We won't publish any of the Kutzky Park email addresses on the site to prevent spambots from harvesting them. But the form is just as quick, if not quicker.

Posted by Griff at 8:50 PM | Link

 
You can now subscribe to the Kutzky Park e-newsletter/weblog digest by using the box on the upper right corner of this home page.

One click gets you on the list. One click gets you off.

Posted by Griff at 8:47 PM | Link

 
We've now added RSS to this weblog. What's RSS?

It's a radio signal for a website, most commonly used for weblogs. More technically: "Rich Site Summary (RSS) is a lightweight XML format designed for sharing headlines and other Web content. Think of it as a distributable "What's New" for your site." See Intro to RSS for more info.

The Newspaper Association of America site has an informative article titled Syndication Made Simple. "Just as free e-mail newsletters enable publishers to directly reach readers and promote online and in-paper content, RSS "pushes" headlines and succinct, one-sentence article descriptions to those who subscribe to the no-cost feeds."

The other side of syndication is aggregation. Here's an article from Wired News that explains why aggregators are all the rage: Aggregators Attack Info Overload.


This icon is the cue that we're RSS capable. So train your aggregator to grab content from Kutzky Park's syndicated weblog.

Posted by Griff at 9:01 PM | Link

 
We're revamping the entire Kutzky Park website.

Watch for weblog postings from Stephanie Kilen... Real Soon Now.

In the meantime, I'll be posting updates here as new features and pages get installed.

Griff Wigley, Wigley and Associates

Posted by Griff at 3:42 PM | Link