Beautification plan for oranjestad

[shariuno]

Any comments, info and or thoughts guys

http://www.aruba.com/news/general-ne...d-has-started/

[Mr. Ratt]

I'm curious as to where exactly they're talking about. Is it the "main street" in front of the hotels dockside, is it the streets in the back of the big hotels where all the cool little touristy type shops are? Not sure, so if anyone's down there that can fill us in, would ya please?
I get the feeling it's the stretch between the Renaissance and the docks. (LG Smith Blvd. I think it is, you know, the street with the little bridge on it)
And also, if you're down there, how is the traffic and such downtown? Any major effect on traffic, as I would expect considering it talks of shutting down an entrance to the downtown area.
Any info would be helpful, making plans for a few weeks from now, and we'd like to know where to avoid the traffic snags.

[lizzardo]

No - the 'main street' is the street about 3 streets in that has La Linda
on it. It's going to be made into a 'pedestrian' street. So the street
along the sea and in back of the Ren is not affected. If you go to
the back of the ren mall - there is a Tous store and a road that was
a one way street feeding the street in back of the Ren mall.
That road is now closed as well as that next road in.

Traffic has not been slowed down at all.

[shariuno]

Thanks for the info, i was wondering about the traffic! anyone have any plans/drawings of how it will look when finished??.....or any other info.

what will happen to all of the shops on main street if it will be closed for renovation?

[lizzardo]

I haven't seen anything on the internet. But when you drive in back
of the ren mall, across the street from it where that 'plaza' is there is
a sign with an 'artist's conception' of the area. But basically it's just
that they are making the road the runs next to the plaza a pedestrian
walkway. I haven't walked down to where the main street project
is. Perhaps they have a sign too.

It does look nice in the drawing.

Also a note: this is not that 'old' plan where they were going to
make main street into a 'mall' and airco it. This is just going to
be a pedestrian street. The 'old' proposed plan was kinda crazy.
I recall there was something about making it into a big casino.
No kidding! This plan is a little saner to me! But i'm not a
big casino person.

[Zippy]

I haven't been on the board the past several months, so I was hoping to get a bit of catch up info.....

I've heard that the main street thru downtown is closed to car traffic?

I've heard that maybe there is a little more "problems" with maybe "less than desirable" folks in the downtown area?

Have more businesses open stores on the north end of the island? In the "newer" mall?

Aruba has always been good to us, and we to it. Some minor talk about "punks" has me aware, but not scared. I'm not a small man anyway! I've ran into much worse situations in other Carribbean destinations.

Belize was the worst .... when a group of people kept grabbing at my wife, and pulling on her. I was polite.... until it was time NOT to be polite. Situation resolved .... LOL

Really looking forward to our trip the end of April 2010.

[Arubalisa]

Beautification plan for oranjestad

[Zippy]

Thanks Arubalisa .... I had forgotten about that.