I’ve become quite interested in the challenge of so-called “revitalization” of old parts of towns and cities. In some cases they are the only possible commercial area (eg: a very small town) or in other cases they are part of large urban downtowns with lots of land and options. However, in many towns and smaller cities, the commercial energy has left the old city areas and set up house on the edges – and these old city centers are struggling.
This piece comes in two parts and tackles the question of how do we revitalize aging city centers of our regional towns and cities.
In this first part, I want to submit to you this thesis: the problem lies in the fact that we still call these areas “downtowns.”
The accidental error with this term is that these old city centers lost their true “downtown” function long ago and unfortunately, in reality, can likely never get it back. We must be vigilant with our language and refine our vision accordingly because it shapes what we think and then do. By using the word “downtown,” a gentle but serious misperception invades our minds and suggests these places will once again rise to glory and be a major center for business. However, in reality, old city centers can almost never become new central business districts without losing what we love about them.
Instead of using the concept “downtown,” we need to revitalize our old city centers as urban heritage resorts, and then plan new central business districts that meet the needs and opportunities of the contemporary economy.
The cornerstone of this argument is this: A true “downtown” is a central business district (CBD) and entails two fundamental elements – offices and shopping – most importantly the major professional, white-collar workforce in the community (eg: offices).
Many old city centers were viable for offices and retail in the past for many reasons, but are not so today and likely will never be again. More importantly, I suggest that considering the feasible options, we don’t actually want the old city centers to be new downtowns as we would lose some very important elements of a future successful city if we do.
However, before we dive in, it is important to clarify that in this discussion I am not focusing on larger cities that have extensive downtowns with high demand for growth or tiny towns that aren’t growing much at all. Here I’m focusing on towns and regional cities that are most interested in conventional “downtown revitalization.”
There are several core reasons old city centers will not work as the central business district of the future and return to being the destination for offices and shopping, including:
- Heritage is the keystone to old city centers – The primary charm of old city centers is their heritage quality – buildings, detailing, eccentric floorplans and many other aspects. It is these elements that are the primary reason why we are nostalgic about old city centers and want to preserve them. This heritage is immediately at stake when any serious amount of new development is proposed within an old city center.
- The logic of contemporary retail requires large sites – The logic of the retail sector today is predicated on offering large selections of goods at the lowest prices possible – and this can only be done in a large-format model. It can be a visibly unattractive powercenter or a more attractive lifestyle center – but it’s large-format. Large-format retail buildings are generally large floorplates with the least expensive buildings possible. They also offer significant areas of parking since they are predicated on accessing large retail catchments and thus everyone drives to shop. Locating such buildings into an old city center would require the land assembly and demolition of large areas. Only in the largest of cities are large-format retailers adjusting their development formulas to fit into urban buildings (eg: Costco, Home Depot, Canadian Tire et al in downtown Vancouver) – but in 99% of cases, they follow a low-density, large-format, car-oriented model. Smart growth and sustainability advocates hate large-format development for good reason – but then they (and we) all shop at them as well. This form of retail will be a staple of North American settlements until individualized vehicle transportation becomes more expensive or cumbersome than transit – and that is realistically far into the future. It’s simply a fact of human nature – and while we need to steadily work to reduce the need to use the personal vehicle, designing cities in a manner that completely ignores human nature never ends well.
- Land parcel sizes and the cost of assembly is too high – The parcel sizes of land in an old city center are generally small – too small for any major development that requires larger footprints for parking garages, optimized floorplates and other requirements. The time it takes for a developer to assemble many lots in an old city center and change the zoning or regulations for them to support new development is far more risky and expensive than starting with a larger parcel of land elsewhere in the city – typically on the urban edge and close to the suburban consumers. Smaller new projects work better in the urban context and these are typically the type of new development one sees in an old city center. While these smaller projects are desirable, they are inadequate in most cases to accommodate the scale of metro growth or regional economic development objectives.
- Parking requirements for commercial uses are too high – The parking ratios for retail and commercial uses are typically in the range of 3-4 spaces per 1,000 sqft. At a rule-of-thumb average of 300sqft / stall (including its share of driving lanes), these ratios mean that the areas required for parking match or exceed the internal building areas. The only form of parking that will work in an old city center in order to achieve the “urban” charm that everyone desires is structured parking – where the cost per stall is in the neighbourhood of $20,000 stall or more. There is no business case in most towns to build such structures and therefore neither the private nor public sector develops the required parking for a revitalized commercial sector. Residential parking on the other hand has ratios of 1-2 spaces per 1,000 sqft – a fraction of the commercial requirements and as such, parking can be accommodated for residential far easier in an old city center.
- The cost of building upgrades is too high – The commercial retail sector requires buildings to be constantly updated in order to present a successful and contemporary atmosphere for its business tenants. Upgrades to buildings, unless very minor and cosmetic, require major upgrades to the old buildings in old city centers – upgrades that have no financeable business case because they cost more than can be recouped in increased lease or sale prices. This process causes buildings in old city centers to age and struggle with decay for many decades until some major gentrification impulse in the whole area results in higher lease or sale prices.
- Infrastructure upgrades are costly – The infrastructure in old city centers is likewise decrepit – requiring millions of dollars to upgrade water, sanitary and other infrastructure, to serve a relatively small population of residents and workers because the old buildings in most old city centers are not at the same scale as new ones.
- The cost of heritage conservation is high – Major redevelopment of an old city center in order to meet current retail / commercial requirements, parking requirements, building codes and other demands raises a serious financial debate in each project as to whether it would just be better to demolish old buildings and build new ones in their place. In cases where this occurs but heritage is preserved, it is usually only the facades of old buildings that are preserved and an entirely new building is built behind the facades – and the facades often have to be nearly rebuilt as they are extremely fragile. The foundations of adjacent buildings to a new development are also ancient in most cases and the cost of shoring up these old buildings for underground parking or new foundations further increases costs.
So what do we do with our old city centers?
We all want our old city centers to be glorious, to bring to life the bustling, friendly, charming urbanity that seems to be hardwired in our collective unconscious – but unfortunately, like our own bodies, as our city centers age, they simply cannot physically respond to what our minds think is possible.
A better approach to our old city centers is to turn them into “urban heritage resorts” – places that preserve and celebrate old, eccentric buildings and streets, and focus on residential, boutique retail, restaurants, and small inexpensive offices for smaller firms, artists, artisans and arts and culture organizations.
This approach has many advantages:
- Desirable eccentricity – The weaknesses of old heritage buildings from the perspective of developing a new central business district become strengths in this model, in that they are diverse, eccentric, human scale and interesting and become the soul of an urban heritage resort experience.
- Residential can succeed – Residential uses can be inserted into the upper floors of many old buildings and bring a good return on investment to the developer while providing a very interesting place to live that cannot be found in new housing areas.
- Minimized parking costs – The parking requirements of residential uses are typically one third to one half of office and retail uses and therefore more affordable. More importantly, if the old center is well served by transit, parking requirements can be lowered below conventional standards. The market will also tolerate parking that is provided some distance from the commercial and retail uses with which it is associated because the old city fabric is interesting to walk through.
- Innovative organizations – The less expensive office and retail space in old buildings supports an endless array of small boutique companies, non-profit groups, arts and cultural organizations and small mom-and-pop shops – creating a vibrant street life.
- Street life – The type of businesses and economy that evolves supports festivals and the closure of streets that further enhance the quality of life and identity of the area, with economic benefits rather than economic disruptions.
Initially, little I have noted here will be a surprise to any who think about or work on city building, and many civic leaders would say that their downtown revitalization plans are just what I have outlined – however here is the kicker – few will then correspondingly offer a new CBD vision in another part of the city as the “new downtown.” Mostly we put all our eggs into an old city center revitalization basket to offset the rise of large-format retail and business parks out on the edge of the city. It is important to understand the implications of the subtle but critical psychological difference that is often missed (and thus missed in policy) – that what we are trying to revitalize is “not” a downtown – rather we are strategically reinvigorating old city neighbourhoods.
There may be a reluctance to give up on the goal of revitalizing the downtown as a commercial center, but I suggest that reluctance only exists because a better idea for where and how to promote a new central business district that will support real economic development hasn’t been proposed in its place.
When we have a strong compelling economic and city building vision for a new CBD, then we can also get excited about preserving and enhancing an eccentric old city neighbourhood and thereby creating an interesting and vibrant city that celebrates its past and builds its future.
The next blog entry will look at elements of a successful revitalized old city area and a new central business district.