Is Morgantown Out of Control?
Post by: Bryan Stealey
Town: Morgantown
Website: Reversing the Numbness
Morgantown rules. We have a vibrant music scene, a thriving arts community, a diverse population, and collegiate sports teams that are firmly planted on the national radar. Not only are we known by football and basketball fans, but Morgantown is also world-renowned in motocross circles, believe it or not. We have cool neighborhoods, museums, famous glass companies, cutting-edge medical facilities, growing industry that employs thousands of people, a happening downtown, dozens of local shops, bistros, coffee shops and bars, a great rails-to-trails systems, a new Wharf District with an amphitheater that features live music and family movies, mountain-bike trails, rivers to ride, rocks to climb, and so much more. Morgantown has really got it going on.
I’m not anti-growth or anything, but I do have to wonder just how far it’s going to go. Sure, we’ve got all that cool stuff I mentioned, but the strip malls are coming in full force, too (some of them in ridiculous places), and an overabundance of national chains are coming along with them. It’s simply remarkable how much construction is going on in this town. As the shopping centers grow, so do houses, condos and apartments. Hundreds and maybe thousands of new homes and units are underway. If you shoot a shotgun randomly in the air — please don’t — a pellet is bound to come down on something that looks like this:
From that vantage point, if you turn 45 degrees to the right, you’ll see this:
This is happening everywhere here, and it’s not just limited to condos and apartments. Housing developments are also spreading like wild fire, from starter homes to high-end McMansions. I live in a Cheat Lake neighborhood that was built in the ’80s, and builders keep surprising me by finding new places to put houses up in the development.
How is all of this going to end? What will happen to all of the older places where people used to live? Will we really get enough new residents to fill up all of these new buildings? How can we make sure our roads will handle all of this new traffic? Our arteries are already clogged — are we headed for a heart attack?
I don’t know. But if you’re one the many who are moving to Morgantown, know that you don’t have to move into a cookie-cutter subdivision with a nifty view of Interstate 79. There are other options, like this, the single coolest building in town:
That’s right, the Good Council Friary is for sale, and if you have a cool $2.8 mil burning a hole in your pocket, it can be yours, all yours. How cool is this place? On a rainy day you can almost imagine yourself happening upon it after a long trudge through moors of Scotland. I wanted to get up close to shoot a photo of the hand-carved stone it’s constructed of, but I decided instead to heed the ‘No Trespassing’ signs. Though I have to think they would have forgiven me for trespassing against them.
Sphere: Related Content
April 24th, 2008 at 1:05 pm
The construction of new homes in Mo-town is out of control. It’s frightening. The big box stores and chain restaurants are nearly as frightening. Do we really need two new Super-Walmarts? Thankfully we have some really fantastic local restaurants like: Maxwell’s, Black Bear, Madeleine’s, Cafe Bacchus, Cafe of India, Puglioni’s, Oliverio’s and The Blue Moose. I’ll stick with those, thanks.
April 24th, 2008 at 3:19 pm
Can you imagine living in one of those row houses? I almost expect to see men in identical suits walking out of their houses all at the same time and getting into identical cars while identical children bounce identical red balls in unison. Creepy.
I LOVE the Friary! Wouldn’t that make the best museum, ever!!!?!?!? Imma get me a lottery ticket, and if I win, I’m going to buy it and build a really cool art gallery/ coffee shop and live upstairs. Yep. That would rule.
April 24th, 2008 at 3:48 pm
I was a bit surprised at the new chopping center I spotted behind the Mo’Town Mall the last time I was in town. I didn’t realize it was this far out of control. its begining to look like South Jersey up in there there.
April 24th, 2008 at 6:29 pm
Little Boxes
April 24th, 2008 at 8:45 pm
I have lived here for 18 years, and I have never known anybody who lived in one of these developments. Who are these people who live there? What do they do?
April 24th, 2008 at 9:55 pm
dm: The answer is no, we don’t need two Super Wal-Marts.
rebecca: The Friary is amazing. Better yet, it’s a couple of miles from our house, so we get to see it pretty often. I hear it’s a bitch to heat, though.
zee: The newest center is on 705 between the Mileground and Evansdale. It’s huge and has (I think) the biggest Kroger in the East.
$: That’s funny. I have to say, there’s nothing special about our house. I guess the people inside make the home, not the box itself.
mungerphut: I guess you could say we live in one, though there are no two houses the same in Meadowlands and most houses have decent-sized lots. There seems to be a big difference between developments made in the ’80s and ones made nowadays. Still, my wife dreams of a house all alone in the middle of a big plot of land.
April 24th, 2008 at 10:52 pm
Yeah, an eco-house. I’ve got it all planned out in my mind!
April 25th, 2008 at 12:15 am
The last post I made is a link. Im not sure how if you can tell that it is or not, because on my computer it doesn’t look like it is one, but it is.
Here it is again just in case you missed it.
Little Boxes
It is a song that is one of my current faves. It is also the theme song to the TV show Weeds. This version is Pete Seger.
I can’t help but sing this when I see these developments.
Oh, and Bryan, where you live is not bad at all. These new places, when you look down a street, it looks like some sort of illusion done with mirrors. I mean, they all have the same light post, the same mailbox and so on. Check out the development that is behind Northpointe plaza. That is the strip mall where ManPower and the Chinese Food place and a bunch of other shit is. It is at the top of Easton Hill just before Cafe’ of India.
If you have time, drive into that lot. You will see Guardian Auto Glass located on the side of the big building. Go towards it and look down that street. Like I said, it looks like some sort of trick done with mirrors.
April 25th, 2008 at 12:47 am
$: The photos I posted in this post are from the back of that very shopping center.
April 25th, 2008 at 10:53 am
This hyper-development makes me cringe. I know, I’ve lived it: I moved back home to WV after living 11 years in the DC area, 9 of those years in Loudoun County, where daily I saw beautiful land eaten up by development after development.
I grew up in Weston, and now live in Buckhannon. While I’d like to see more economic development in Weston, Buckhannon is doing just fine. The last thing I want to see is Corridor H completed and the cookie-cutter dwellings and shopping centers start marching over the mountains via that road.
April 25th, 2008 at 1:07 pm
The row house development is unbelievable. That type of land development is why I left private engineering consultants to work for local goverment as an engineer - try to keep these guys under control, rather than participate in the destruction. I also left the Baltimore/Washington area for the Eastern Shore of Maryland. Well, if they keep developing, I’ll just keep moving away from it….
April 25th, 2008 at 1:57 pm
My brother and his wife live in the Cheat Lake area. They have a tiny townhouse where they pay more per month (in rent) than I pay for my nearly 3000 square foot house mortgage in Kanawha County. I’m surprised that this “supply and demand” problem hasn’t created more affordable rental housing (or housing, in general). I guess people like the Cheat Lake area - he and his wife are happy there and don’t want to move back this way (closer to her parents - frankly, I know her folks and I live too close for my own likes). LOL.
April 25th, 2008 at 2:41 pm
OK, I see that is the same development I was talking about. It is like it is out of some sort of nightmare or something.
April 25th, 2008 at 3:06 pm
Evil Twin’s Wife: Sleekpelt and I live in the Cheat Lake area too. We fortunately bought our house before the real estate market skyrocketed. The prices for homes in the Cheat Lake area have decreased drastically in the last year. They’ve had to. New construction is out of control here. It freaks me right out. I’m like, “Who is buying all these houses?” Well, apparently nobody. They’re sitting on the market with decreasing prices.
April 25th, 2008 at 4:41 pm
Mungerphut: the answer to your question lies in comment #11.
April 28th, 2008 at 1:45 pm
Good Council Friary
It use to be you could walk around there - no problem. The last time I was there, the place seemed to be falling apart. I would think it is going to take a lot of money to fix it up. The castle downtown is also for sale - across from the parking garage.