Tag: fulton mall

Categories : Fresno Housing RetailTags : 33 Comments

Fresno Fulton Mall / Street September 2017 Construction Photo Tour

On By jamesinclair

This is a comprehensive look at the Fulton Mall (future Fulton Street) in Fresno, 2 months before construction is scheduled to end. Fresno is spending around $20 million to eliminate a pedestrian mall and re-open it to vehicles and vehicular parking. The intention behind it is to bring economic vitality to the corridor.

My last update was in January. Back then, we were told construction would end in May 2017, a delay from the original date of November 2016.

Previous posts
January 2017
May 2016
August 2015 (construction diagrams) 

I was looking forward to this walk, hoping things would be looking up after a year of damaging construction. Sadly, the corridor looked the worst that I have ever seen. Most businesses were closed, many permanently. Click to read more!

Categories : Fresno RetailTags : 10 Comments

Fresno Fulton Mall January 2017 Deconstruction Photo Tour

On By jamesinclair

It’s been eight months since I last looked at the Fulton Mall. Back then, major construction had started in most parts, with fences everywhere. Concrete had already been poured on the parking areas at the southern end. I assumed it would be mostly done by now, but not even close. Let’s take a look at the current status (current as of last week).

Note: Pictures taken on New Years Day, so most businesses closed for the holiday, but if you look closely you’ll note many have been run out of business thanks to the abysmal construction staging. Also, please let me know if you have trouble viewing the image. As google has killed Picassa, which was integrated with Blogger, I have moved to Flickr.  Click to read more!

Categories : Fresno RetailTags : 17 Comments

Can Manchester Center Mall be saved?

On By jamesinclair

Built in 1955, Manchester Center Mall was Fresno’s first foray into the suburban enclosed mall template*. Three and a half miles north of downtown, the Mall promised ample parking and an escape from the weather. The concept was indeed successful, and the mall expanded as the decades went by.

Well, for awhile anyway. Fresno kept expanding north (Fashion Fair opened in 1970), and Manchester Center was left behind. What was once the edge of the city became the inner city. As popularity waned, so did the investment. By the mid-90s, the mall was in serious trouble. And in 2009, when Gottschalks (139,500 square feet) closed, it was left with only Sears (186,000 square feet) as an anchor and a handful of stores catering to lower incomes. Click to read more!

Categories : Fresno Housing Parks RetailTags : 8 Comments

A quick update on downtown Fresno construction projects

On By jamesinclair

It’s been a few months since I’ve been able to post photos of what has been changing in downtown Fresno. Unfortunately, I haven’t had the chance to explore the area and take photos, so I present to you a different type of update. Here are some photos I took in May, along with a look at what those projects look like this week, with photos sourced from friendly people around the web. It’s amazing how much (and how little!) can change in 3 months.

Tuolumne Bridge – High Speed Rail Project 

 When I last visited this project, it looked like this:

And now it looks like this: Click to read more!

Categories : Retail UncategorizedTags : 12 Comments

This is what the destruction of Fresno’s Fulton Mall looks like

On By jamesinclair

Fresno’s pedestrian mall, one of the first in the country, is no more. A multi-year campaign by the city to remove the pedestrian and bicycle mall it and replace it with a street for cars has been successful, as (de)construction is well underway.

I took a walk down the entire length last week and took too many pictures. This post, from August, has some reference pictures as to what it looked like a year ago. Be warned, this post is long.

The north part has totally been removed. The center part looks disconcerting, with plenty of mall left but lots of destruction. The southern end has already progressed to the point that concrete is being laid for the parking areas. Click to read more!

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Fulton Mall supporters continue to fight removal of pedestrian mall

On By jamesinclair

Last week, the city of Fresno held a groundbreaking ceremony to mark the start of the deconstruction of Fresno’s Fulton Mall. However, there is still a small chance that this project can be stopped and the pedestrian mall can be saved.

Groundbreakings are purely symbolic. Some are held months, or even years before real construction begins. Others are actually held after construction has begun. All a groundbreaking is, is a photo opportunity for politicians involved in the project. For private projects, a groundbreaking can serve as a way to reassure investors on progress. For public projects, they serve as fodder for campaign materials Click to read more!

Categories : Fresno High Speed Rail Housing RetailTags : 5 Comments

An overhead look at downtown Fresno before high speed rail changes everything

On By jamesinclair

About a month ago, I went out and took hundreds of pictures around downtown Fresno. The intention was to post them quickly, but that obviously didn’t happen. My post about the changes at Fresno State took a few days to put together, and then I was away from the internet for a week due to a planned surgery.

This set of pictures was originally intended to show the current state of High Speed Rail (HSR) construction in Fresno. However, a lot has happened in a month, so they’re no longer current in regards to construction activity on the project itself. Instead, they will serve as a benchmark of what downtown Fresno looked like right before serious construction started in earnest, and before private investors started taking note of the prime empty lots. Click to read more!

Categories : UncategorizedTags : 10 Comments

Last chance to comment on plan to remove the Fresno Fulton Mall – act now!

On By jamesinclair

On December 3rd, at 1:30pm, the Fresno City Council will be presented with the last step of the process to eliminate the Fulton Mall and turn it into a street. They will vote on whether to award the contract or not to begin the destruction of the pedestrian mall.

At this point, the project is 11 months late and, more importantly, $3 million dollars over budget.

At $23.05 million, American Paving had the lowest of three bids for
the project. The other two bidders were Lewis C. Nelson at $23.3 million
and Granite Construction at $27.68 million. Right off , the city
is eliminating a bid alternative that will save around $600,000. That
takes American Paving’s bid to $22.4 million. The cash on hand for the
project – around $20 million – means City Hall now needs to either cut
around $2.4 million from the proposal or find some additional revenue.
It looks like the city isn’t counting on the latter. Click to read more!

Categories : UncategorizedTags : 10 Comments

A look at the Fulton Mall (de)construction diagrams

On By jamesinclair

If you haven’t been paying attention, Fresno last year approved the removal of the 50-year old pedestrian mall in favor of a street for cars.

Well in under two weeks the construction bids are due. What that means is that the design has been completed (or is at least at 90%) and we can take a look at what will actually be built. I say actually being built because what we have seen previously were simply pretty renders. While renders capture the concept and some detail, they are subject to much change; what you see is rarely what you get.

These diagrams are dated July 1st, 2015, and were prepared by:
Landscape Architecture: RHAA Landscape Architects, of San Francisco
Civil: Provost & Pritchard, of Fresno
Structural and Electrical: Teter Engineers, of Fresno
Traffic: Peters Engineering Group, of Clovis
Fountains: Pacific Water Art, of Sunnyvale
Geotechnical: BSK Associates, of Fresno
Transportation: NelsonNygard, of San Francisco
Art: Architectural Resources Group, of San Francisco
Arborist: Hortscience, of Pleasanton
PR: Shared Spaces, of Los Angeles
Programming: MJM Management Group, of San Francisco Click to read more!

Categories : UncategorizedTags : 3 Comments

Don’t miss the giant Catacomb Party this weekend!

On By jamesinclair

The Fulton Mall is going to be packed to the brim this weekend (Saturday, April 4) for a large free (free!) music festival, known as the Catacomb Party, and you won’t want to miss out on it.

photo catacomb3_zpsrd27pc0n.jpg
A scene from the 2013 edition, http://www.catacombparty.com/

This will be the third edition of the party, and will be by far the biggest one yet. The first edition was in 2012 with a single stage, and I posted a review with some pictures here. It was repeated in 2013, after expanding to 5 stages, before taking 2014 off so the organizers could return bigger and better than ever.
 
This time around, the party has moved from in front of what was the Fresno Brewing Company (now Peeve’s) to the Mariposa Mall area, which is the central square of the Fulton Mall. That’s usually where the big stage is set up for the Cinco de Mayo festivities, and is where the Ice Skating Rink pops up during the winter. Click to read more!