In the previous post, I explored the challenges that frequently emerge when communities call their old city centers “downtowns” and thereby implicitly try to restore this area to its past commercial primacy as a central business district.
Many reasons were outlined for why this is not only highly unlikely to happen, but also that by responding appropriately to contemporary commercial and retail requirements, what everyone loves about the old city center area would be lost. Instead, two courses of action are better:
- 1) Turn old city areas into high amenity, downtown living areas by introducing as much residential as possible around the existing older retail and office buildings, and thereby creating an “urban heritage resort” atmosphere; and
- 2) Create a new central business district with a strong urban plan.
So how should we plan revitalization of both our old city centers and a new center for our urban economies?
Elements of a successful Urban Heritage Resort.
Let’s start with elements to consider in planning an “urban heritage resort” neighbourhood. Great urban heritage resort neighbourhoods have the following characteristics:
- Heritage preservation – A strong heritage preservation agenda to keep its eccentric character, while allowing new development in and around the older buildings.
- Flexible standards – Building codes and policies with some measure of flexibility wherever possible in order to minimize renovation costs and keep lower cost retail and small office space available.
- Residential intensification – An aggressive agenda to promote residential development in, around and on top of the existing buildings to significantly increase the population in the area. The success and vitality of the area with many small footprint retail shops and restaurants requires a significant amount of walk-by traffic and this requires a lot of population.
- Hospitality – A wide range of hospitality options is highly valuable to enhance the tourist economy as these old centers become destinations over time because they have interesting heritage buildings, cultural areas, and unusual shopping choices.
- Structured parking – Structured parking throughout in order meet demand but maintain the pedestrian and heritage character of these areas. Where the finances do not support structured parking, centralized at-grade parking areas near the main street areas can suffice but they will break up the flow of some of the streets.
- Living streets – Street upgrades and policies that focus on encouraging the living, eating, shopping and celebrating to get out onto the streets and sidewalks creates vitality that draws more interest to the area. With urban populations, the sidewalk needs to be re-envisioned as part commercial uses and part outdoor living room or backyard uses for the urbanites that live in the area.
- Animation – While many communities feel the urge to spend significant resources on upgrading their old city center streetscapes, and this brings benefits, the real energy can be created for minimal resources with interesting signage, banners and public art and rather focusing on programming it for various activities.
- Food and alcohol – While food and alcohol are fundamental to a high-amenity old city artistic neighbourhood, controls are needed so as to not create a party zone that causes extensive late night noise and disturbances for the many (new) residents in the area as the residential grows.
- Boutique spaces – Smaller CRUs and boutique store structure are maintained to keep commercial and organizational diversity. The key to desirable eccentricity in these areas is to keep many smaller and less expensive spaces for companies, organizations and artisans. As soon as the land values start to rise significantly, only chain stores or mainstream organizations will be able to afford the area.
- Transit – Links by transit to other areas with high employment (eg: the new CBD) and areas with schools because these urban residents will be more predisposed to take transit than their suburban cousins – and will take transit to work and school but are less likely to do so for shopping as they will have most of what they need downtown.
- Cycling infrastructure – A strong cycling network as many will ride their bikes.
- Recreationally intense parks – Parks that are heavily programmed because these parks will be the front and back yard for all the new urban residents in the area and will want to use them for gardening, eating, playing and doing all the things suburbanites do in their backyards.
- Street parties – Regular street festivals that block of the streets and bring everyone in the community into the neighbourhood to experience the place and celebrate its eccentric desirability.
Planning a new CBD
Having now secured a vibrant, eccentric and desirable urban heritage resort in our old city center, we can now turn our attention to the exciting prospect of planning and developing a new CBD that focuses on jobs, institutions, and a great new future for the economy of our town or city.
This topic is obviously an enormous one and far beyond the scope of this piece to cover sufficiently, however a few points can be identified here to support its essential thesis.
Planning and developing a new CBD should consider the following:
- The economic brand – Identify a location that will be desirable by businesses, based on current development patterns – some of these will be new or redeveloping areas and national urban geography suggests that most new CBD areas migrate toward the city’s most desirable neighbourhoods.
- A re-developable area with future flexibility – Select a larger area that will provide affordable redevelopment flexibility that can be affordably assembled and redeveloped over time – this often means selecting existing older commercial or light-industrial areas developed in the 1950s-70s.
- Reinvent large format strips – Consider how best a new CBD could reinvent areas with large-format sprawl by positioning the new CBD in or adjacent to them to encourage intensification of these areas over time – especially with office uses and urban CBD amenities (restaurants, great sidewalks, civic symbols and places, etc…).
- A robust structure – Ensure its structure will support structured parking in an affordable manner – such as avoiding high water tables, supporting 40m blocks for double loaded parking structures, and other development feasibility must-haves.
- The old city center edge – If there is enormous demand from some large employers (government, health, education) to be “in the old downtown” due to its cache for employees or for other romantic reasons, then create a new business district on the edge of the old area. This often pushes a new CBD into an older urban industrial areas – noting that often soil contamination be a major challenge in doing this. If the desired new CBD is farther away, then a city would likely be advised to discourage new major employment nodes in the old city area and instead refocus that investment into the new area to help it succeed sooner.
- A new master plan – Develop a master plan for a new CBD that includes:
- A New Central Avenue – A strong urban structure with a major new “main street that will become the primary and most attractive business address in the city over time;
- Civic open space – Establish urban public realm infrastructure early such as a city square, a central park, and such to give the district a sense of civic grandeur;
- Civic uses – Consider a civic precinct for future city hall, law courts, and other civic uses with high levels of employment and symbolic presence;
- Retail ground floor – Retail space at the ground floor everywhere, noting interim uses may be allowed for service or office where retail demand is not sufficient in the short term;
- Urban form – Near zero-lot line guidelines to ensure an “urban” character emerges, rather than the suburban character created inadvertently through controls such as reduced site coverage;
- Night uses – Areas for cabarets to ensure the place remains active at night and keeps the late night noise away from the “old city center cultural area” where all the urbanites are now living (and sleeping) in condos; and
- Transit – A major presence of transit to connect this job center to all areas of the city.
By creating a new CBD and repurposing the old city center through refocusing it on residential that will benefit from its eccentricity, we can achieve the best of both worlds – desirable character, heritage preservation, a cultural district on one hand, and new economic district with a bright future on the other.
And one hundred years from now, this new CBD will be the new “old downtown” and will be seen as eccentric and desirable or the urban living culture – and we can begin again.