Regional and Urban Design Committee

This message has been cross posted to the following Discussion Forums: Regional and Urban Design Committee and Retail and Entertainment .
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One of my partners sent me this article and thought it might generate some interesting discussion.  It highlights the need for restraint in urban planning with regard to retail functions on the ground floor in plans.  How many times have you seen a plan where the entire ground floor is shown as 'retail', without regard to population density, market, etc?

Check it out and tell us what you think.  Contribute what you've seen that works, or doesn't work.

http://crosscut.com/2011/09/19/architecture/21314/Seattle-is-killing-retail-by-requiring-too-much-of-it/

It helps that the author is not just and architect, but a Fellow to boot!  Good read.

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Edward Shriver AIA
Principal
Strada Architecture, LLC
Pittsburgh PA
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Edward, Thanks for the link to this insightful article. Hinshaw is correct that overeager city planners have mandated ground floor retail in places where it makes no sense. I say this as a committed New Urbanist who is absolutely dedicated to mixed-use urban infill development. People have no idea how delicate a flower urban retail is, and sadly, many cities are now mandating the construction of empty storefronts on sites that never have and never will support a retail presence.

Some will argue that it's a chicken-and-egg proposition--that you need to force retail to get retail, but Hinshaw rightly notes that some streets (even in New York) just don't have the pedestrian traffic to support retail at any level. Evenutally those empty storefronts become either professional offices (bad) or social service agencies (worse).

I think the question for planners and people writing and approving downtown codes is how to encourage ground floor retail development without mandating it? One idea would be to simply not count ground floor retail against a building's FAR, nor require any parking for it. That would strongly incent the developer to include ground floor retail (basically as bonus rentable space) without forcing it to happen where it shouldn't.
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David Greusel FAIA
Overland Park KS
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