johnwirtz
Evanston, IL
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bldng4jstc said:
From someone who has the experience - when High St. had retail, what was so different then?Also, we want retail, but what retail?
If City Center counts as retail on High Street (even though it was internal and not on High Street) the difference was that Polaris, Easton, and Tuttle Crossing didn't exist yet.
Years before that, more people lived in the central area and had still fewer options elsewhere.
bldng4jstc
Downtown
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johnwirtz said:
If City Center counts as retail on High Street (even though it was internal and not on High Street) the difference was that Polaris, Easton, and Tuttle Crossing didn't exist yet.Years before that, more people lived in the central area and had still fewer options elsewhere.
What about the storefronts on High during and before City Center?
johnwirtz
Evanston, IL
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I'm 31 and don't personally remember the time before City Center well. However, I seem to remember a lot of vacant storefronts on High even during City Center's heyday. I can only assume they built City Center as the remedy du jour for High Street's retail problems.
I would guess that the last time High Street was bustling (maybe the early 1960s?) was when more people lived in the central area and couldn't shop at outlying malls like Northland, Eastland, and Westland.
Coremodels
Really close to Explorer's Club.
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johnwirtz said:
I'm 31 and don't personally remember the time before City Center well. However, I seem to remember a lot of vacant storefronts on High even during City Center's heyday. I can only assume they built City Center as the remedy du jour for High Street's retail problems.I would guess that the last time High Street was bustling (maybe the early 1960s?) was when more people lived in the central area and couldn't shop at outlying malls like Northland, Eastland, and Westland.
This isn't accurate. Downtown was fairly bustling prior to City Center, and in fact it was built because there was a pretty good shopping business being done.
Walker
The KLD / Downtown
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johnwirtz said:
More seriously, I don't think the bus lanes are the problem with downtown retail. IMO, downtown simply doesn't have the residential density to be like the Short North. It does have some commercial density though, so I think downtown retail is going to be reliant on office workers for a while, maybe always. Most businesses will probably close up after the office workers go home. It's just the nature of a central business district.
True, they are two different neighborhoods with very different demographics.
But I do think it's interesting that the busiest night for every business in the Short North is Gallery Hop, when the area is flooded with shoppers and spenders from outside the area.
Similarly, I imagine that Polaris, Easton and Tuttle don't make the majority of their money from "neighborhood" customer within an easy walking distance.
Of course, I'm comparing apples to oranges with Downtown, but I do think that "destination retail" that attracts shoppers beyond the smaller residential crowd or the tougher office crowd isn't something unfathomable with some infrastructure adjustment (fewer confusing one-way streets, easier metered parking, and a better system of parking garages/lots that shoppers can easily understand/navigate).
Walker
The KLD / Downtown
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bldng4jstc said:
Increase the number of surface parking lots,add huge government/corporate buildings with no street level presence, decrease the number of people living within walking distance to maybe 1000, dump in even more parking garages, disconnect it from any other community by bridges, and add thousands of people who only care about the area from 9-5 and want a highway out of town - would that hurt retail? :)
Yes, of course. Not trying to imply that retail is as simple of an issue as to only have one easy transit/parking-related fix... but there are several specific items that make retail easier/harder for businesses and customers, and convenience parking is one of them.
It's easy to grab a meter in front of the Apple Store at Easton to buy an iPod. It's nonexistent is to grab a meter in front of Spinelli's Deli Downtown to grab a sandwich.
Walker
The KLD / Downtown
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bldng4jstc said:
From someone who has the experience - when High St. had retail, what was so different then?
For one thing, we didn't have a transit mall. From here:
http://www.columbusunderground.com/planning-downtown-with-msi-design-part-2
Keith Myers: One thing I’m sure of is that if we don’t do something, we’re not going to have retail on High Street. It’s not coming by itself. If we do nothing, we’ll get nothing. In 1978 there was retail in Downtown Columbus. I don’t recall the exact date that our “transit mall” was built on High Street, but our retail died pretty much right after that. In the late seventies and earlier eighties there weren’t anymore people living Downtown than there are now. There were 100,000 people working down there and they’re still there. So something changed and these transit malls have proven to be unsuccessful around the country. We still have ours. I will say that the most passionate comments we’ve gotten during this whole process is in regard to High Street. There are people who are angry about the current state of High Street. People are fed up with the state that it’s in. High and Broad are our two most significant streets and of the two, High Street is in awful shape. The buses are an issue. We’ve got almost every single route running on High Street Downtown.
CalebR
Lincoln Village
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IMO, i don't see a problem with moving buses off of High Street. Like john said though,that alone would change the retail land scape. We need to do more to impress business owners and get them to open a second location (which is better than moving) in downtown.
johnwirtz
Evanston, IL
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The importance of on-street parking
Blog post by Steve Mouzon on 10 Aug 2011
Steve Mouzon, New Urban Network
http://newurbannetwork.com/news-opinion/blogs/steve-mouzon/15124/importance-street-parking
Walker
The KLD / Downtown
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johnwirtz said:
The importance of on-street parking
Blog post by Steve Mouzon on 10 Aug 2011
Steve Mouzon, New Urban Networkhttp://newurbannetwork.com/news-opinion/blogs/steve-mouzon/15124/importance-street-parking
Great Article. The final paragraph is the most important:
Retail expert Bob Gibbs says that every on-street parking space in a thriving retail district is worth $250,000 in sales to the nearby merchants on that street. People will walk much further along an interesting Main Street to get from their parking space to the store they're going to than they will walk from a parking lot. I blogged about Pedestrian Propulsion a couple years ago; that post explains why this is so. Simply put, if you want to kill the businesses along a thriving commercial street, just remove the on-street parking. Works every time.
Pablo
Crestview Addition
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scorpcmh said:
+1 to Keith Myers....exactly on the money. There was still retail on High Street during the early/mid 1980's, with on site parking, and before the bus lanes took over....
I seem to recall that High St. was rebuilt in the late 1980's ahead of the opening of City Center Mall. The street was rebuilt with 5 lanes (down from 6) to widen the sidewalks. Here's a photo from 1970 looking south from Town St. - the Southern Hotel is visible, there's on-street parking and the buildings on the left is were Columbus Commons is today:
bldng4jstc
Downtown
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I am all for on-street parking in High st, but not by simply degrading transit. COTA and parking could relatively easily co-exist downtown with some simple modified routing, another bus stop removal, and some tow-away times in the afternoon. Unfortunately, I got the feeling at the COTA meeting that one lane must provide an uninhibited drive straight through downtown and 3rd/4th are untouchable. No capacity was to be compromised which is why we got the ideas we did.
johnwirtz
Evanston, IL
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Smifth27
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A Transit Station would be great for downtown. The construction would be great for jobs, retail and the overall look of downtown. Has there been any information on this project? Downtown retail need parking as well as an environment that is appealing to customers.
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