Downtown Revitalization Do s and Don ts Most Common Mistakes ANd Factors Contributing to Success By Freedman Tung + Sasaki
Downtown Revitalization Do s and Don ts Downtown Revitalization Do s and Don ts. Not long ago we were asked to list the three most common mistakes and three most important contributing factors to success in nationwide downtown revitalization efforts. Our firm continues to review downtown revitalization plans and strategies to learn from the innovations as well as the mistakes of others. To respond to the question, the four Principals convened and had a fascinating discussion on the topic. None of these observations cover public process and leadership, which may well be more important than any of them. The request focused on the necessary contents of a plan for downtown revitalization rather than on those other essential ingredients of success. Our preliminary conclusions are below. 1.0 The Three Most Common Mistakes of Downtown Revitalization Efforts 1.1 Ov e r s i z e d a n d Di l u t e d Do w n t o w n. Probably the most damaging and commonly made mistake in downtown planning and revitalization efforts is the tendency of communities to envision a downtown that is much too large, with retail/ restaurant the assumed use at ground level. More specifically: a. b. c. d. Downtown plans often fail to distinguish between a downtown core and the greater downtown; Downtown plans that do identify a smaller downtown core area typically size that core much larger than the market can support (and often do not check the depth of that market); Downtown planners typically miss the opportunity to use policy tools to prevent unnecessary competition to downtown retailers. This mistake is most common in cities with historic downtowns built before the age of the shopping mall and commercial strip. Historic downtown districts are of a size that was created in an age in which all shopping, entertainment, employment and community services were located downtown. That same building stock must be re-purposed to fit the structure of demand in contemporary suburban society. These mistakes result in an extremely diffuse pattern of retail. The downtown is thus left without concentration of activity, variety, density, and people, which is, of course what downtown is all about. 1.2. Th e Big Fix (a l s o k n o w s a s Th e Ma g i c Bu l l e t ). This refers to the very common but mistaken notion that a big anchor use, like a movie theater, sports center, performing arts center, hotel/convention center, or other large destination development, will single-handedly reverse the fortunes of downtown. Issues of location, design, ground-level treatment, public space, land-use & development policy restructuring, and other revitalization programs are then swept to the side. The result: a large, alien development that people drive to and away from in the center of the dying downtown, with, at best, some new shops directly across the street. In our work with Redwood City, the City Council has seen to it that this did not happen with the Retail Cinema project, which in most other cities would have become a blank-walled, insular super-block building.
1.3. Emp h a s i s o n a u t o m o t i v e c o n v e n i e n c e a t t h e e x p e n s e o f Pl a c e. Ever since shopping malls and commercial strips stole away the largest share of shopping investment from downtowns, cities have made the common mistake of assuming that downtown should compete with these facilities by providing more convenient parking, wider roads with plenty of capacity, and by placing parking next to anchors. This is a mistake. Downtown cannot compete with the convenience of mini-malls, strip centers, power centers and shopping malls surrounded by surface lots and positioned along wide arterial streets. To be successful, downtown must be the lively alternative to the strip, offering great places to walk, sit, and to hang out. The best downtowns offer streetlife, vitality, urbanism, romance, beauty, and the magic of the city. Uses that do better in such vital environments -- such as restaurants -- choose downtown every time. Runners-Up. Two additional very common mistakes that didn t make it into the Big Three: A. Planning downtown in isolation from the rest of the city - as if the retail in the downtown is not affected by city-wide competition. If downtown is to become a true center of the community, it must be planned as a central node in the overall framework of retaildriven places in the city. Another example of this mistake relates to the tendency of cities to locate civic buildings such as new city halls, community recreation centers, libraries, and post office storefronts on available sites outside of downtown, rather than to think about the best place in the structure of the city to get the most value from civic buildings. Since a successful downtown is always the most public district in the city, it is essential for civic buildings to be clustered there whenever possible. B. The idea of let the market decide instead of using policy tools to incubate a successful downtown is a deadly misunderstanding in the downtown revitalization business. The historic downtown was, in fact, a creature of market demand, for the same reason that communities must act to keep downtowns strong in the current suburban development landscape: the enduring preference of retail investment has been for visibility and access. Left to its own, retail will follow the primary circulation arteries anywhere zoning allows it to. The market combines with rampant commercial zoning along wide thoroughfares and freeway interchanges to produce strip retail and dead downtowns (or no downtowns in cities that never had one, such as Cupertino or Milpitas).
2.0 The Three Biggest Contributing Factors to Success in Downtown Revitalization 2.1. Co n c e n t r at i o n, d e n s i t y a n d m i x People of all ages, variety of uses, in a compact cluster of buildings, uses and activities, is the essence of downtown. The synergy of the mix is what distinguishes a downtown from all other city districts, and it creates a setting for unique types of businesses and activities that will thrive nowhere else. 2.2 An c h o r s. Having noted the pitfalls of The Big Fix perspective, it also is important to note that anchorless retail centers do not do well. A downtown today, on one level, is a retail/restaurant/entertainment center. Very-well-documented research and experimentation in the retail/restaurant/entertainment center - a.k.a. lifestyle center - industry shows that anchors are essential to success. A Downtown without anchors remains vulnerable to a competing nearby center with such anchors. Cities must pursue both nighttime anchors and daytime anchors, and must insure that they are properly located and designed in the Downtown Core. Downtown supermarkets, especially ones that incorporate a large prepared food / eating area, are increasingly becoming very valuable downtown assets that will assist in attracting housing investment and in keeping residents in the district for many of their daily needs. 2.3 Building t h e Do w n t o w n o f t h e Tw e n t y -f i r s t Ce n t u r y, r at h e r t h a n t r y i n g t o n o s ta l g i c a l ly r e c r e at e t h e Do w n t o w n o f t h e e a r ly Tw e n t i e t h Ce n t u r y. A number of essential opportunities for downtowns have come about as a result of significant changes to the structure of society and suburban cities. Our observations to date: Household demographics have changed dramatically: house- holds are now smaller, more diverse, and there are more without children. On average, they are older, and seniors often don t want to drive. These societal changes have manifested a completely underserved market for a variety of housing types, and housing placed in proximity to shopping, entertainment, eating, public spaces, community services, and employment. a. The congestion of the suburbs: until relatively recent times, sub- urban cities were places that people went to escape the congestion of the big urban centers. In the last twenty years, with the spread of office development throughout the suburbs (along with retail, services, cultural amenities, etc.), suburban cities in major metropolitan regions have become intensely congested. Recent data (and common sense) suggests that this is resulting in major shifts in behavior and real estate values in the direction of a growing preference to limit driving distances and the necessary number of trips. Continuing high gasoline prices will exacerbate this. Downtown (done properly) offers the alternative of living within b.
walking distance of most if not all of the things that we need on a daily basis. Furthermore, downtown offers a choice that is becoming increasingly attractive to a growing segment of society: the choice to have a high quality home in a high quality neighborhood that saves substantial sums of money and/or precious hours of daily life by reducing dependence on driving (think affordable lifestyle rather than simply affordable housing). c. In the early 20th Century, larger city downtowns were where the non-industrial workplace was centered the CBD. That got hollowed out by cars, shopping malls, and business parks. Now, innovation-driven workplaces are coming back to downtowns, but not in the single-use CBD model talented workers want to be close by appealing during- and after-work eating, meeting, and living places. In the downtown of the 21st Century, a synergistic mix of uses is key. Runners-Up. A. Connectivity. In keeping with the diversity, density and livability of downtown, offering the most choices in how one gets to downtown (as a visitor from another neighborhood our outside the city) or connect elsewhere from downtown (as a downtown resident or worker) makes it a desirable place to live, work and invest. B. Meaning. In our age of the look-alike commercial strip, business park and theme park, we believe there is a pent-up hunger for the lost places of coming together that have always been so meaningful in our society. When the clustering of mutually reinforcing land uses is combined with the history of a downtown and the continuity of its community institutions and civic price, this can create a tremendous resonance of place, offering to slake our unconscious needs for shared territory, a setting for community and belonging.