Just thoughts that popped into my head while reading the article above:
The development artwork looks good, but with 234 new residential units the access via Samuels Avenue into Downtown is going to be even more congested than it is now. This would have been a great area to have run a streetcar to, assuming many or most of the residents are going to work (or play) in downtown. As it is, the pinch in road width between Peach and Belknap Streets, and the poor connection into the downtown grid makes it difficult to get in or out of the neighborhood, especially when the elementary school is loading or unloading SUVs and school buses. Maybe one thing that could help would be a wide bike/walking path along the river but at an elevation easy for residents to reach that would connect the apartments with downtown.
The article mentions Tom Struhs and partner's original vision for apartments, condos, shops and restaurants. The condos haven't worked well, but that can best be attributed to the economy, but where are the shops and restaurants? I can't see this area being a draw from other parts of town due to the traffic mess, but is there just not a critical mass living there yet to attract retail businesses?
It seems to me that this area would be served well if the various railroads in the area could be convinced to participate in a project to "unionize" the spider's web of tracks into one modern, possibly sunken, corridor as part of the eventual upgrade of the Tower 55 mess. By unionize I mean combining individual companies' facilities into one that is shared and superior to what came before, as in "Union Station". This sort of facility could speed trains through the area quieter, faster, and safer, since it could be built without at-grade crossings. This would of course need to be a public/private project (like the current Tower 55 upgrade/patch) since the railroads cannot be forced to do any rail relocation they don't want to.