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Day 32

day 32Today’s walk was dominated by the strip malls along Richmond Road at Man O’ War. Most of the time I find that walking slowly past a place allows a lot more detail to sink in than driving past quickly, but that was less true here. My biggest surprise was that the first of many painted horse statues that I will walk by during this project turned up in front of a Texas Roadhouse.

Texas Roadhouse's painted horse
Texas Roadhouse’s painted horse

But today’s stroll did give me the opportunity to walk down nearby Rio Dosa and Locust Hill, past a retirement living complex and a pretty standard apartment complex.

I’ll probably say this about every single strip mall I walk past, but this again feels like an opportunity.  Some of the people who work in the strip mall live in the nearby apartments.  So do many of the people who shop at the grocery store.  Yet this area is treacherous to travel by foot.  Two things really stand out as contributors to this.  One is the traffic flow.  The service road concept works fine in small highway towns, but in areas with heavier traffic, drivers are forced to focus on too many things.  A certain volume of traffic making left turns onto streets like Locust Hill is unavoidable, but there are design features that can make this a little less dangerous for pedestrians as well.

Hedges instead of sidewalks
Hedges instead of sidewalks

Second is the lack of pedestrian features in general.  In this case (as in Hamburg) pedestrians are driven to walk through parking lots or narrow streets with landscaping.  The message is that, if you don’t drive, we don’t want you.  Sometimes this is not an obvious problem because of the type of businesses; indeed, this stretch has many car-oriented businesses.  But this is short-sighted, as better pedestrian features might encourage someone to seek out a coffee shop while they wait for their car repairs.

What works: mix of apartments, including retirement complex, close to shopping

What doesn’t: true pedestrian connectivity could use some work

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Day 28

day28Today took me to an area roughly between Palumbo and Woodhill, just outside New Circle Road.  I knew that Palumbo is very industrial in this area (which borders the RJ Corman line) but wasn’t sure what else I’d find.  It turns out that the industrial properties on Palumbo back right up to residences on Mirahill, and this is part of the Woodhill neighborhood.  This area seems quiet and unassuming, with lots of toys in yards, probably quieter than usual on a rainy afternoon like today.

For Lease signage along Codell
For Lease signage along Codell

Similar to Mirahill/Palumbo, Codell is a clear dividing line between uses, with commercial uses on the east side (a fairly successful strip mall facing New Circle Road and very empty office/commercial space facing Codell,) and apartments and condos on the west side.  This area seems pretty well connected; a bus runs down Woodhill and Codell, surely there are plenty of jobs in the area.  Nonetheless, the apparent vacancy rate of the commercial space isn’t really shocking based on age and appearance.  It’s not easy to compete with new.  One has to view this area as an opportunity.

The good: nice mix of uses

The bad: commercial space isn’t creating opportunity

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Day 27

day 27Today took me to an area off Chilesburg road, officially part of the Anderson Property neighborhood and a subdivision called Still Meadow.  This is a new neighborhood with larger homes.  The neighborhood has aged well in these critical early years, and benefits from a degree of visual variety that lower-end tract neighborhoods don’t get including an expanded pallet of siding colors.  This area also manages to fit in some townhouses, which are amazingly in the 2,500 square foot range.  The houses and lots are large and there is a lot of interstitial space (sometimes programmed as greenspace or park), including some interesting areas behind Ridge View that must border Jacobson Park but which are too large to belong to the neighborhood.  All this space makes this neighborhood genuinely quiet.

A dead end street segment programmed by the neighborhood.
A dead end street segment programmed by the neighborhood.

This neighborhood repeats a common Lexington pattern of dead-end streets that look prepared to connect somewhere else…someday.  Here (as elsewhere) these short segments get taken over with uses, in one case here,  turned into a little playground.  This neighborhood also has it’s own small park, complete with exercise circuit.

Water feature at the entrance to the Still Meadow subdivision
Water feature at the entrance to the Still Meadow subdivision

Sometimes it seems like subdivisions get features from their developer that are showy but that probably don’t add value, and the water feature at the entrance fits this well.  It would work in a backyard, but it’s too easy to drive by without noticing and not robust enough to be played upon.

The good: Visual diversity.

The bad: Too young to have much personality.

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Day 25

day 25Today’s walk was a quick one, through an office park and industrial area at the interchange of New Circle Road and Winchester.  There weren’t a lot of surprises for me here, likely because I’m already familiar with this area.  But, some of the industrial use is a little more intensive than I expected.  It was also neat to see the back of one of the neighborhoods I walked recently (Brown Ave, from day 23) from the adjacent commercial/industrial street.

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Walking trail signs along Beasley and Fortune allow lunchtime walkers to measure their walks

The south side of this stretch of New Circle Road is home to Paul Miller Ford and Paul Miller Mazda.  The Miller Family also has hands in a number of other area businesses, including Fortune Realty, Beasley Digital Printing and Fortune Collision Center.  Meanwhile, a business on the north side of the street features a large poster supporting Alison Lundergan Grimes as a Senate candidate, a tour bus for said candidate is parked nearby, as are a whole lot of cars with lots of “Alison” bumper stickers.   Two prominent local families have made this interchange a focal point, and this should emphasize its importance.

Back to street names.  “Jingle Bell” seems like an unusual name for a street, especially one that is so industrial.  My assumption has always been that, like many other streets in Lexington, it is named for a more or less famous Thoroughbred racehorse.  And though it may be named after a horse (three horses named Jingle Bell have their pedigrees listed), I think the “famous” part is in serious question.   And, the Paul Miller Ford building (at Jingle Bell and New Circle Road) has a hyperbolic paraboloid “saddle” roof  and is probably a lot older than the most likely Jingle Bell.

 

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Day 12

day 12Today I returned to the parking lots of Hamburg, perhaps with a little more than the warranted expectation of finding something interesting, based on my experience on Day 4.  Again, I spent a portion walking on streets where walking was outright discouraged (as on Pavilion and Vendor) or not likely to be particularly useful anytime soon (as on Man O’ War).  Certain things feel like missed opportunities (a flat, grassy area between Man O’ War and a detention pond; the lack of any potential footpaths on the two smaller streets, which are traversed by workers if not shoppers.).  It may be interesting to note that my earliest impressions of Lexington were based on this area, when I visited a nearby smaller town during a business trip in 2005.  The aesthetic of this area is contemporary and has remained relevant.  Despite the bland music piped through (why do places like this insist on speakers outside when the music they play is so offensively inoffensive?) I was given a few seconds of joy by the sounds of a would-be opera singer.