A fork in the road

October 4th, 2012, 7:46 pm

This week we encountered an unexpected fork in the road.  Tuesday we contacted the owner of the old Million Dollar Saloon in hopes of being granted permission to enter.  The original plan involved looking at the current lay out of the building and getting a feel for the setup inside which would allow us to start brainstorming on how we will utilize the space.  The owner was uncooperative and informed us that the space is already in use.  We had already designed wall art which would have been on the eastern wall of the Million Dollar Saloon, facing the Chatham Parkette (shown below).

The Green Room logo on the east wall of the Million Dollar Saloon

 The city has released a plan to turn the Chatham Parkette into an outdoor performance area, covering half of the current green space in concrete.  It puzzles us as a team as to why the city would want to remove green space in the downtown core when there is very little green public space in this area. 

View of the Chatham Parkette

With our plan at a stand still, we began to start thinking of alternatives to our project.  We felt that our idea of a quaint coffee shop which sold local organic products, healthy snack alternatives and provided a comfortable and cozy place to socialize was something that the downtown core needs.  In the meantime, we are canvasing the area to find a new location for The Green Room.    One suggestion by Rod Stickland was to contact the owners of the Phog Lounge.  He feels that they would be open to our concept and may be willing to work with us on actually implementing or building from our ideas. What drove us to the Million Dollar Saloon was the fact that we could utilize the building as well as the Chatham Parkette.  The new location isn’t going to have a park directly beside it so the group has thrown out a few ideas as to what they would like to see done with the new location.  Ideas such as “freecycling” and pulling the front of the building back 20 to 30 feet to allow space of a garden or green space were some ideas along with creating a vertical greenhouse on the front of the building.  Chelsea and Katrina will be leading the group with the architectural design and playing off the groups wild and crazy ideas.

Aside from our setbacks, we have made some progress.  Simon has been steadily working on creating an informative pamphlet which we will be handing out to local business owners to give them some insight on our ideas for our project, a timeline and a background on each team member.  T-shirt companies have been contacted and we are waiting to hear back from pricing

Example of a group member’s background for the pamphlet

Next week, Ryley and Nick will be studying the demographics of the downtown area and collecting information on land use.  With this information, they will be executing a site location analysis using ArcGIS to narrow down the optimal location for the new building.  This will help eliminate any sites we may have in mind from failing as a business.

Other than a small hiccup in our plan, everything is going well.  We are excited to get past the planning stages and start executing the early steps of The Green Room.  We have a lot of work to be done in the next few weeks so check back regularly to see how this concept is all going to come together.

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A Hopeful Target

September 28th, 2012, 10:03 pm

 

After gaining feedback on our progess, we continued forward with detailing our project proposal in support of the Chatham Parkette. We have taken advice on redesigning our logo and would like to share below:

Taking a look around our site’s borders, we formed an interest in expanding our boundaries, specifically to the adjacent vacant building. Converting this space into a café/lounge would define the “Green Room” ideal in our efforts of bringing existance back into the green space, where its function as an exterior seating area would compliment our interior proposition.

 

Above: the building we hope to obtain for our Green Room in its current state.

 

A schedule has been made and assigning of individual tasks has begun in an effort of finalizing our goal for the semester. Focusing on funding, design, and community involvement, we anticipate to leave a lasting impression within Windsor’s downtown area.

We have realized just how important our communication with business owners and the community will be in making our project a success. Since our idea is entirely based on a building we do not have the means to rent, as well as on the participation of those within the surrounding area who we cannot offer any monetary means, we are forced to address this issue in the form of creating a presentation document for ourselves. We will individually compile a document with our backgrounds, aims, and dedication to this project as a way of introducing ourselves and showing people in the community how dedicated we are to making this project successful.

Currently all our hopes lay on our interaction with the building owner of this location, we hope to deliver good news in the coming week and be able to make rapid progress from there!

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