Good afternoon and happy Friday. As we move into the weekend (and Daylight Savings Time for those of us in the United States), it seems like spring is right around the corner. Here’s what you need to know as the seasons change:
A 2,731-strong team is recreating all of New York City in Minecraft
What started as a pandemic hobby has morphed into a thousands-strong project to recreate New York City at 1:1 scale in Minecraft. The 2,731-person team is part of the larger Build the Earth initiative, which, as the title aptly describes, is looking to fill out a “blank” Earth template in the game with accurate recreations of everything on the planet. Work has been steadily ongoing and the final results are impressive to behold; Curbed has both an interview with the 21-year old who started the project and screenshots of New York County Supreme Court, the 9/11 Memorial site, Grand Central Terminal, and more rendered in cubic meter blocks.
H/t to Curbed
The newest Super Nintendo World will open at Universal Studios Hollywood next year
Appropriately revealed yesterday, March 10 (the non-governmental holiday of Mario Day), the newest Super Nintendo World will reportedly touch down in Hollywood next year. While the Osaka park at Universal Studios Japan has been open since 2021, the Orlando, Florida location won’t welcome guests until 2025. So for stateside Nintendo fans who want to walk through giant mushrooms, explore Bowser’s castle, race on a Mario Kart circuit, or ride inside of a Yoshi, the reveal of a Universal Studios Hollywood expansion for sometime in 2023 is a welcome one. While no specific opening date has been announced yet, you can check out the renderings and English descriptions of what to expect on the Super Nintendo World website.
H/t to Gizmodo
New York Governor Kathy Hochul sets aside $200 million to bolster shovel-ready projects
On February 28, New York New York Governor Kathy Hochul announced the Focused Attraction of Shovel-Ready Tracts New York (FAST NY) grant program, a $200 million initiative to develop sites and attract high-tech manufacturing tenants. Under the FAST NY program, that money will go towards preparing “shovel-ready” sites identified by the Empire State Development Corporation that will be prepped with electricity, water main, and sewer hookups to speed up pre-development site planning and reviews.
H/t to Construction Dive
The Buffalo Bills select Populous to design their next NFL stadium
Multinational sports and entertainment architecture firm Populous has been tapped to design the new home of the Buffalo Bills in Orchard Park, New York, ending the debate over whether the NFL team would renovate their existing stadium or build a new one. Although the move indicates the team is committed to realizing a new open-air stadium, questions over who will pay for the $1.4-billion project is still up in the air, and Governor Hochul hasn’t indicated whether she would allocate state funds for development.
H/t to The Athletic
In Georgia, a Marvel company town is an experiment in New Urbanism
The town of Trilith is growing into the center of Marvel’s Georgia presence, and architecture and urban planning firm Lew Oliver Inc. has used the town as a testbed for New Urbanism principles. Designed to be walkable and dense with a range of retail and amenity options (but not dense dense), Trilith (originally named Pinewood Forest after Pinewood Atlanta studios, which is now Trilith Studios) was intended to support about 5,000 residents and there are about a dozen shooting locations inside.
H/t to Variety
