more on utc facelift

jay and i met for lunch over at utc on friday (love that genghis khan), so we stopped by the kithaus-designed preview area for the utc redesign. here's a summary of what's planned: the big parking lots on the northwest side will be converted to residences and apparently have a parking deck or undergound parking - hard to tell. the area where sears is on the southeast side also appears to be slated for townhouses/condos. no word on where the solar panel farm is going. no info on what new stores, but you can do a video interview there and make your request for h&m, or whatever. there appears to be a grand entrance area set for the northwest corner, near where they'll be covering those lots. an outdoor dining area (second level?) is shown on the northeast lots, near where the new crate & barrel is currently going in.

also interesting was the proposed trolley stop. last i heard it didn't look good for the trolley extension up i-5 - and then how does it get over to utc? but it would be pretty sweet if that happened someday. for now, better put in lots of underground parking or decks.

who knows how much of the above will actually happen, but it does look promising. and those kithaus modules (shown above; sorry, phone cam) where they have the model look great.