Covington - Update 61 "Chestnut Hills and South River Bend"

[warconstruct]

vey nice job and the update is splendid 

[bat]

Yes, great work on the streetmap, region and pictures!
Wonderful update...

[JBSimio]

Battlecat:  Thank you!  It took a L-O-N-G time to get all those townhouses to grow that way and I'm glad to hear it was worth the effort.

Jordan:  Thanks!  The maps are time consuming, but I enjoy making them.  Both buildings you mentioned are by SimGoober.  The first is from his Santa Clara series and I think can be found in his civic pack on the LEX... the other is a hospital.

Bobbi:  Thank you!

Tomas Neto:  Thanks!

Gjermund:  Thank you!  It's always nice to have you visit and hear your thoughts.  The old village of Knob Hill was kind of an accident, to be honest.  The roads all ended up meeting there and I had needed some medical coverage as things spread out... so I plopped Weatherwax Pharmacy and thought, "Hmmm... that would make a pretty fun looking village."  Since it was in the suburbs, I had to kind of invent the rest of the story. 

Joan:  Thank you!  You've noticed another one of my little tricks with your comment about the intersections.  I purposely try to minimize access to the "side streets" so as to prevent busses from using them.  (I also use a bus blocking lot for streets, but fewer intersections makes it much easier to place these lots without having so many as to ruin the look of the neighborhoods)  The fence around the commercial area is a little touch I like to use at times, although I try not to overdo it.  The riverwalk has also been a fun and easy way to spruce up the waterfront without getting too carried away.

Geoff:  Thanks!  Avoiding straight lines and grids has been one of the only "rules" I really stuck to for this region.

976:  Thnk you!  Welcome to Covington!

Warconstruct:  Thanks!  I'm glad you liked it 

Bat:  Thank you!  So nice to see you again, my friend.

I suppose I should probably apologize for the long delay in getting back here... I know what you've all been thinking.  "Oh look!  Jon got himself in the Hall of Fame and then decided he could just sit back and not have to update anymore.  What an egotistical jerk that guy turned out to be!"  Yeah... that's pretty much how it happened... sorry.* 

Update Time!!!

58.01


We'll have to do without the newer fancy map tonight... mostly because most of what we're about to see is actually just north of where the new maps ends.  So for this one, I'm using the old style map which still covers the entire region.  We're headed back to the northwest side of Covington this time towards Sharon Valley and Chestnut Hills, so lets take a look...

58.02


Holden Road ends just north of the corporate park here at Cone Boulevard.  Like so much of Cone Boulevard, this intersection supports a number of larger stores and restaraunts.  Jack in the Box is a very popular lunch spot for all the office people over at Bank of America tower.  It also provides them with a pretty, red sign to look at from the windows all day.

58.03


A little further north is the Sharon Valley industrial park.  The Pink Hat factory is here along with a number of warehouses and other cleaner industries.  Aparently, the horses got loose from one of the nearby farms again.  I certainly hope all those people leaving work don't have any problems.  You've seen what hitting a deer can do to a car... can you imagine hitting a horse?!?

58.04


Just to demonstrate how close to the edge of town we are here.  You can see the top of Mount Sinai Medical Center at the bottom of the picture as the Joseph Bryan Parkway curves off to the northwest.  Subdivisions are everywhere up here, and they're creeping closer and closer to the farmland.

58.05


A closer look shows just how close the houses are getting in some areas.  The only thing that separates these new homes from the farms and their older farmhouses is a thin line of trees.  Residents of this particular subdivision tend to leave their windows open a lot more than most suburbanites.  The flower farms may have something to do with that... or it might just be that all the people who are against air conditioning happened to buy houses in the same place.  Who knows?

58.06


I guess it's hard to blame people for wanting to live so close to the farmland.  I'd much rather have amber waves of grain in my backyard than Joseph Bryan Parkway... but that's just me.  The highway does get a lot of commuters into the city, so it was a worthwhile project when built.  A number of people now complain that it should be a freeway all the way into downtown, but it is very unlikely that this will ever happen.

58.07


Heading back east along Cone Boulevard, we see... more big box stores?  Well, ain't that a shocker?  The houses start just behind these stores, so we probably won't see any major shopping centers here like we have over on the east side in Harmony Hills.  They really seem to like Dave and Busters up here though... remember the other one just down the road near Summit Avenue?  It's really not that far away, but I guess they must be doing well.  Probably a lot of business from the corporate park and hospital again.

58.08


A little further to the east, we can see the North Ridge industrial park again.  North of Cone Boulevard in this area is known as Chestnut Hills.  It's very similar to what we just saw in Sharon valley, but they gave it a different name.  I'm not sure if it was out of snobbish individualism or simply because this area has hills instead of a large valley.  Either way, you can see the hills rising up behind the endless commercial stip along Cone Boulevard... and those hills are now blanketed with upper middle class subdivisions.

58.09


Most of the main roads in Chestnut Hills run along the valleys with little room for any development on the sides.  This actually lends a much more rural feel to the area than it actually has anymore.  It wasn't long ago when this was still farmland, but building has been at a feverish pace here in the last 15 years or so.  Now these winding "country" roads are flanked by housing tracts hidden behind some trees or by the hills they cover.

58.10


The area has grown so much that a new elementary school was needed here.  Chestnut Hills school is somewhat crowded by the fire station and clinic that also serve the neighborhood.  The teachers get annoyed with all the noise and distractions, but the city really didn't have much choice.  There just aren't many large tracts of flat land up here and the area grew so quickly that things had to be built as soon as possible regardless of exactly where they ended up.

58.11


One last look at the creeping nature of progress here in Covington...

58.12


And finally... it almost goes without saying that there will be one of these, doesn't it?

Thanks for reading!!!
JB


*  In truth, I actually had a much busier winter so far than I expected... but that story really isn't nearly as amusing as the other version!

[scott1964]

Interesting. Looks good. 

[art128]

Nice update, Jon boy ! ( ) I really like the transition picture from suburban to rural, nicely done the little forest my friend, good job with it. Also, as I already told you, I'm really kind of your cul-de-sac pictures, they're quite beautiful.

The first picture is also great, with that mid rise. I really like how it turned out with the mix between the modern shops office and those old styled walls and the old W2Ws.

Picture 58.06 is my favorite of this update, these houses are really "goodly" placed and I like the mix of them. Also, as usual nice work with the C-D-S streets. The only thing I can reproach is the lake of more cars over the highway, with some more the picture must be fantastic.

Take care,
-Arthur. 

[bat]

The overview and road map of your city are excellent! Great work on that update with great pictures...

[ShultzCity]

Stunning! Possibly the best region view ever in my opinion 

[Battlecat]

That creeping progress is looking amazing!  The suburbs look fantastic as do all the other details.  Looks like those farms are going to start feeling the pressure from developers.

[canyonjumper]

That is amazing! I really like the region shot!

              -Jordan

[GreekMan]

Jees, I spent about an hour reading this great MD. WOW, man this region is truly amazing.  You start from scratch and everything. i love all of those towns you made. They are so beautiful and great looking. Your downtown is very nice too, but that convention center? I thik you need to bring several things to your region:  new sports teams, a bertter looking regional train becasue i don't like that maxis version, and a mass transit system. You stll have a lot of work to do. I should know snice I am building an entire region too. The work will never stop on it.....Congrads on all your awards and keep up this great MD!!!!

[Jmouse]

Every time I look through a new Covington update, a different descriptive word comes to mind. The current word du jour is "casual." And that's meant to be a compliment. Over the nearly two years of its existence, Covington has evolved in a completely natural way, with housing developments eventually rubbing elbows with farmland.

Yet, despite the growth, it has retained its small-town - or smaller-town - ambiance. Although my travels have been limited, I've driven through towns that inspired me to lock the car doors and look straight ahead. Then I've been through others that seemed friendlier for some reason. Stop to ask for directions and leave with a hand-drawn map and maybe even a phone number. "If you get lost, just give me a call!"

58.04 is proof that your region looks great at any zoom level, and that's a bit trickier than it sounds. I especially like the farm in the upper left - that photo could easily have been taken from a news helicopter.

As always, the neighborhoods (58.05, 58.06, 58.09) are inviting - plenty of trees and a nice mixture of architectural styles. Even the mandatory commercial strips are inviting, or at least not "forbidding!"

Do you remember back when I tried to guess where the next few updates would be? Well, I was entirely wrong. I thought you might head due west along that highway that horizontally bisects the developed area. It remains the largest green space by far, and could end up being the last to see development.

Later...
Joan

[City Builder]

Your farms are absolutely amazing looking.

Theres a lot of praise that I could heap upon your region but I'm sure it would be nothing others haven't already said about it.  So, I'll simply say, that it's really fantastic and I look forward to any further updates to it.

Thanks for sharing it with us.

I'm going to have to work really hard to try to emulate your farms, and they are worth emulating for sure, they're just well... Amazingly beautiful from the eye in the sky view as well as down closer to earth.

[ecoba]

I have to agree with a lot of Joan's wondeful points stated above. Covington certainly has, despite the growth that comes with such a large city, retained it's small town, deep-south feel.

Of course, the wonderful neighbourhoods of the city are wondeful. Tree-lined and gorgeous. I hope that we'll get to see a whole new community similar to Celebration Hills soon, as I really enjoy that type of neighbourhood.

Hope to see some more udpates soon, Jon.

Ethan

[City Builder]

Beautiful city shots.

Question: Do you hand sculpt (plop) all of your shown areas or do you look for areas in your game that make great screenshots to represent your city?

[danielcote]

Wow I was wondering where this MD is but congrads anyway's.

[MayorToaster]

Wow!  What a realistic looking region shot!  That's brilliant.  Nice suburbs too 

[Nanami]

Great update!

[JBSimio]

Scott:  Thank you!

Arthur:  Thanks!  I'm also quite pleased with how the transitions from urban to rural have turned out so far.  I know what you mean about the cars, but I just don't have the patience to sit and wait for them to show up.  I should probably change my NAM settings for one of the higher automata files, but I keep forgetting!      

Bat:  Thank you, as always, my friend!

ShultzCity:  Thank you so much!  (Nice name too... throw in another letter and it would be the same as mine)

Battlecat:  Thanks!  I plan to leave the farms alone for the most part until the last of the empty spots are filled in... but after that, who knows?

Jordan:  Thank you!

Greekman:  Thank you and welcome to Covington!  I still have plenty to do as you said... it will probably never be done anyway, so I guess I have plenty of time. 

Joan:  Thanks once again!  I think the addition of FAR has really helped make the closer views more acceptable.  I look back at some of the earliest entries here and wonder how I ever thought they were fine with the old jagged roads!    The farm you mentioned is SimGoober's infamous Fukitol farms and also pretty high on my list of favorites.  As for your original guess:  I wasn't that far when you mentioned it, but I am now.  The last area for development will probably be the southwest corner near the rail yards.  I have some very specific plans for that section, but that's all I'm going to say for now. 

City Builder:  Thank you so much for your kind words!

Ethan:  Thank you!  Today's update is near Celebration Hills, but not quite as open as the first glimps of that neighborhood.  There will be some more very sparse suburbs like that coming soon though.   

City Builder:  Very little of what you see is plopped or sculpted.  Probably the most plopping I did was in the corporate office park along Joseph Bryan Parkway.  Most everything else is grown patiently (and with a heavy finger on the bulldozer button at times) and then I just look for areas that best represent what I was going for.

Daniel:  Thanks!  Here it is...

MayorToaster:  Thank you!

976:  Thanks!

Ahhh... RLS!  Probably no point in explaining the long delays yet again, so I'll just skip right to...

Update Time!!!

Today's update will take us out along Interstate 40 to the western edges of Covington... where Joan thought we were going a while ago!    How about a map?

59.01


There's a few small spots to fill in around the edges of the map this time, but things are coming together quite nicely.  Since most maps are pretty self-explanitory, it doesn't leave a whole lot to talk about here... so let's just get on with the update!

43.09


I'm not sure if anyone remembers this picture from a while back, but this was the beginnings of that little subdivision just of Market Street and Squirrel Valley Road.

59.02


And this is how it looks now!  The former trailer park has grown into another example of American suburbia.  7-11 has been replaced with an even uglier office building, and a few other smaller commercial buildings have sprung up along Market Street here.

59.03


The corner of Foothill Road and Market Street has also added a couple new businesses, but McDonald's doesn't appear to be going anywhere!  More housing tracts are making their presence felt and the owner of the orchard across the street is starting to wonder if now is the time to sell out and retire.  That may seem a bit premature based soley on this picture, but I think you'll understand where he's coming from soon enough...

59.04


Further south on Foothill Road, the reasons for our farmer's concerns (or money making opportunities, depending on how you choose to look at it) become a bit more apparent.  A new water tower encourages the commuters on I-40 to smile at Covington's industrial expansion.  Or maybe the water tower's smiling faces are meant to ease the concerns of environmentalists and rural home owners.  Either way, a rather large industrial park starts near Holden Road and lines the north side of the interstate all the way out here before it finally dwindles off.  Further expansion seems quite likely, but time will tell how quickly that happens.

59.05


Heading back towards Bittner Road, most of the industrial park looks like this.  Warehouses and mostly cleaner industries keep things fairly nice as factories go.

59.06


In some places, the industrial park spreads away from the highway almost to Market Street where the big box stores and smaller office buildings take over.  We've seen this scenerio often enough, so there really isn't much else to say about this picture.  However, before someone chastises me for the lack of traffic on what is actually a pretty busy street, I would just like to remind everyone that daylight savings time can get a little out of control.  Of course there's no traffic... it was 1:00AM when this picture was taken!  Don't ask me when the sun plans to actually go down... I have no clue.

59.07


23 hours of daylight not withstanding, all this job development has spawned several large apartment complexes nearby.  This particular one sits just north of Market Street near the curve on Bittner Road.  I lost count of how many buildings are in this complex, but only about half of the whole development fit in this picture.  It seems that the property manager may want to have a talk with the gardeners, though... some of those trees are in awfully strange (and potentially dangerous) places.

59.08


Along the freeway is another development of townhouses just off of Bittner Road.  You may remember from a previous update that this is also near the large Celebration Hills shopping center at the Holden Road exit.  I had an updated view of that shopping center here somewhere, but then decided for various reasons to skip it this time.  So until I do show it, you'll just have to trust me that it has grown and filled in... although still nothing like the Harmony Hills center on the east side of town.

59.09


As densely packed as some of these developments have become, the "freedom" of postage stamp lawns and dead end streets is never far.  The classic subdivisions are all here for anyone who might like to stand on their back deck and look through the next door neighbor's dining room window.  Zoning regulations have done a nice job of sheltering these subdivions from the noise of the main roads with lots of trees and other green things.  This really makes it much easier to hear the same neighbors (you remember... the ones you were just looking at through the window) when they decide to argue about where the next mortgage payment is supposed to come from.

59.10


It's important to point out, amongst all the cynical jibes at suburbia, that Covington's growth is not only happening on the outskirts.  Things are booming back in the city as well.  Take Northern Heights, for example.  The views overlooking UNCC have continued to drive urban renewal.  Taller apartment towers replace the older brick buildings of Covington's earlier days to take advantage of the hilltop views towards either campus or downtown.

59.11


Speaking of downtown, the skyline there has added several new features lately.  This new apartment building went up at Murrow Boulevard and Market Street recently.  Developers are currently waiting to acquire the smaller buildings nearby for further redevelopment.  Plans call for another apartment tower along Murrow with the remaining small buildings to be knocked down for improved landscaping.  No time frame has been set at this point, but we'll check back eventually.

59.12


Perhaps the biggest changes to the skyline are in the two blocks near Benjamin Parkway and Friendly Avenue.  Until recently, the tallest buildings downtown tended to be built closer to the loop formed by Interstate 85 where they could benefit from all the traffic visibility.  The Coca-Cola and Aramark towers both chose locations where their signs could be seen by everyone passing by.  As that land is now getting pretty hard to come by, developers have started to see the advantage of building on the western edge of downtown where views will always remain open thanks to Memorial Cemetary and the historic district along Benjamin Parkway.  The newly completed Jenner Tower is a mixed use office building which now lays claim to Covington's tallest building.  Just to the left with it's curving front is another apartment building which is also a new addition to the downtown area.

59.13


All these new projects are really beginning to shape the skyline in Covington...

59.14


...not to mention the view from space.

Thanks for reading!!!
JB 

[TiFlo]

Do I spot some of the highly expected new university buildings at 59.10?

Nice update. And the region shots are always truly impressive! 

[art128]

Great update, Jon !

Picture 59.10 is my favorite of the update, the towers fits just perfectly there, like the university buildings. The downtown is certainly a nice one, great mix of towers. I simply love the general view by night, all these lights really gives a good touch to the update, also nice add with the clouds.

Keep it up !

Arthur.