Nur Asri is an
Associate at Larisa Ortiz Associates
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| Main Mall, Charlottesville VA |
It’s been almost sixty years since the first pedestrian mall
in the US opened in downtown Kalamazoo, MI. Designed by Victor Gruen, the
father of the suburban shopping malls of America, the Kalamazoo mall has since
been opened to one lane of traffic after forty years of being completely
pedestrianized. The fate of the Kalamazoo mall is unlike that of hundreds of
other counterparts across the nation. In fact, according to one study,
pedestrian
malls in the United States have an 89% rate of failure.
Pedestrian malls are often characterized as being public
streets designated for pedestrian-only use and closed to vehicular traffic. The
predominantly downtown feature rose between the 1960s and 1980s as an attempt
to attract shoppers back to downtown cores following the flight to suburbia.
Since its heyday, over 170 pedestrian malls across the country have been
completely removed, combined with transit, or continue to struggle.
The Problem with
Pedestrian Malls
Since its inception, pedestrian malls have posed several
issues for downtowns including crime and safety, low retail visibility, and lack
of customer convenience. Collectively, these issues have resulted in a less
attractive shopping environment, lowering foot traffic and customer dwell times.
When these patterns emerge, the retail mix also starts to shift away from comparison
and destination goods and services, and vacancies become a common sight.
In Poughkeepsie NY, for example, the Main Mall which was in
existence from 1973 until 2001, failed to stop the decline of the downtown due
to growth of immediate suburbs and shopping malls, and also the rise of vagrancy problems on the mall.
Following the opening of the Dutchess County Department of Social Services nearby
and the lack of assistance and programming on the mall in the 1980s, Poughkeepsie
began to attract loiterers and transients on the Main Mall and was no longer a
preferred shopping destination amongst County residents.
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| Third Street Promenade, Santa Monica CA |
Too often the design of pedestrian malls often neglects
heightening visibility of stores to various types of customers. Since malls are
closed off from the rest of downtown, enhanced store signage and increased wayfinding
is needed to direct customers towards businesses on the mall. Blade signs,
A-Frame signs, large fonts, and clear logos were often left out of
consideration. Placement of signs at every entrance to the mall was often
disregarded and ended up leaving those customers driving in cars around
downtown out of the picture.
Finally, the lack of convenient parking spaces and well-maintained
pedestrian pathways to parking structures or transit stops on the periphery of
downtown drove customers away from pedestrian malls (no pun intended). Even business owners operating on the malls found
their operations disrupted as they often no longer had a dedicated, convenient
spot to load/ unload goods. Accessibility of the downtowns became disrupted as
a result of pedestrian malls.
Getting the
pedestrian mall right
Despite these potential problems, some pedestrian malls have
managed to survive and continue to be attractive environments for shopping
downtown. And as we’ve found, there are a myriad of factors that enable these
malls to be successful.
- Co-locate the mall near large anchor institutions and attractions
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| 16th St Mall, Denver CO |
Having institutions and anchors such as universities,
hospitals, museums, convention centers, and stadiums/arenas, ensures that there
is a constantly high flow of pedestrian traffic year-round in the downtown that
is likely to spill onto the pedestrian mall. The City of Denver’s 16th
Street Mall, for example, sees large numbers of pedestrians annually thanks to
its close proximity to the Pepsi Center (home to national hockey team Colorado
Avalanche), University of Colorado, Denver Performing Arts Complex, Colorado
Convention Center, and Coors Field, home of the major league baseball team
Colorado Rockies. Last year alone, the Colorado Rockies saw close to 3 million
attendees to their games for the season.
- Build a captive downtown audience
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| Upper floor housing on 2nd St, Santa Monica CA |
The visitors to attractions and destinations are still quite
temporary – there are ebbs and flows in their movements. However, residents and
workers have a more consistent daily pattern of movement and they’re likely to
pass through the pedestrian mall at least once a month, if not a week. In a
survey conducted in downtown Santa Monica, 82% of residents were found to visit
the Third Street Promenade at least once a month. Furthermore, making dense downtown housing
available not only creates captive shoppers for businesses, it also ensures
that residents have their eyes on the mall at night, creating a safer
environment for shoppers.
In the 1950s, Santa Monica’s Third Street Promenade mall
failed because most stores closed by 5pm when no one lived in the immediate
area and there were no late-night entertainment options and few restaurants. Today,
there are mixed-use residential buildings on adjacent streets, numerous hotels
and office buildings in the area, creating a strong day-to-night captive
audience for the pedestrian mall.
- Ensure active ground floor uses
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| AMC Theater Third St Promenade, Santa Monica CA |
To ensure the pedestrian malls are active and safe 18 hours
of the day, ground floor uses should be zoned for active uses that cater to a wide
range of audience. Operating hours of retailers and services on the ground
floor should be long and late-night hours should be maintained for a sizable
portion of ground floor uses. This is easy to get at when there are
restaurants, bars and entertainment venues along the pedestrian mall – just like
Pearl Street Mall in Boulder CO. Santa Monica also successfully achieved this
with a 21-screen cinema on Third Street (and zoning out cinemas from other
nearby areas – an extreme solution).
- Keep length of mall short
Of the 11% of pedestrian malls that have survived since the
1960s and continue to thrive, a hundred percent measure between one and four
blocks in length – and no more. The short blocks allow ‘minimal disruption to
traffic circulation and permit cross-traffic to pass through the mall’, solving
for issues that may arise around convenience and accessibility for shoppers and
businesses.
- Mitigate traffic diversions and design the
pedestrian experience from afar
If a mall is to be located on a street that already
experiences high levels of vehicular traffic, some traffic diversion will inevitably
occur and this may potentially result in the loss of customers who are driving
to the area and who are seeking convenient parking. Measures must be taken to mitigate such
impacts and may include clear signage
to guide drivers to the nearest available parking lots and to guide visitors between
the mall and parking areas, well-lit and
well-maintained pathways and alleys connecting the mall, distinctive entrances to the mall, and large and varying store signs.
In addition, two-way roads should encircle pedestrian malls (instead
of one-way roads) to make adjacent roads safer for pedestrians and easier for
driving customers to turn around on.
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| Busking on Bourke St Mall, Melbourne (Australia) |
Finally,
pedestrian malls that have continued to thrive have been consistently clean and
well-maintained. This ensures that visitors are welcomed by an inviting public
realm. Programs and events such as busking and festivals have also been carried
out throughout the year at successful pedestrian malls in order to build
experiences for shoppers who are seeking more than just physical products.
Having a centralized, coordinated management group for the
pedestrian mall enable smooth operations and program delivery and can really
contribute to the overall success of a mall.
Just a Word of
Caution
Although the above factors laid out here may help you
implement a robust and integrated pedestrian mall, the mall does take a lot of
stakeholder engagement, rallying support, and A LOT of capital before it can
succeed. Remember – of the approximately 200 pedestrian malls built in the 60s
and 80s, only 11% have been successful and even then many had to re-invest and re-strategize
their malls over the years.
Pedestrian malls aren’t for the
faint of heart.
