Revisiting Strip shopping centers as loci for retail innovation

Bill Lindeke of the MinnPost wrote a column, "In praise of Twin Cities strip malls" that gets at why strip shopping centers, cursed by urban revitalization advocates like me (seemingly), actually have the potential to do what Jane Jacobs said old buildings did, "support innovative new uses because rents are low because the building is paid off."

In cities, depending we revitalization advocates saw 1980s urban renewal strip centers as opportunities for multistory buildings with ground floor retail.  As the market changed, that became possible, and centers in Columbia Heights and on H Street NE among others, were converted.

We didn't see these spaces as places of innovation so much.  Just parking fronted spaces that were counter to urban design principles.

Suburban hipness.  With the type, depending on the location, I wrote a couple pieces about this in 2013, "More thoughts on suburban hipness (it's really about commercial hipness generally, not urban vs. suburban)," and "Millennials and suburban hipness and Montgomery County, Maryland," infused by visits to Phoenix and Seattle, and seeing some really interesting retail businesses operating in "un-cool" strip shopping center spaces.  

Spaces of innovation.  And again in 2025, "Place breaking versus place making: Making people places | independent coffee shops, small business spaces, outdoor spaces."  I wrote:

One of the major precepts of Jane Jacobs Life and Death of the Great American City is that cities need "a large stock of old buildings."  

East Ohio Street, Allegheny City, Pittsburgh.

This wasn't because she was a historic preservationist, but because old, mostly paid off buildings were cheaper to rent space from than new buildings ("Big Data Backs Jane Jacobs: Cities Need Old Buildings," Smart Cities Dive, Older, Smaller, Better Measuring how the character of buildings and blocks influences urban vitality, NTHP).

1. Older, mixed-use neighborhoods are more walkable. 
2. Young people love old buildings.
3. Nightlife is most alive on streets with a diverse range of building ages. 
4. Older business districts provide affordable, flexible space for entrepreneurs from all backgrounds. 
5. The creative economy thrives in older, mixed-use neighborhoods.
6. Older, smaller buildings provide space for a strong local economy. 
7. Older commercial and mixed-use districts contain hidden density.  

What she didn't anticipate is that in strong markets, either at the city-wide or sub-district scale, regional, national and international real estate actors would bid up the space and improve it, so that even "old buildings," became the equivalent of flashy and new and not cheap to rent.

Early on when I got involved in commercial district revitalization, I believed that only historic buildings were capable of supporting the kind of innovation that Jacobs wrote about.

But later I came to understand it was more about the building as an envelope.

Points #1 to #7 can be re-written and applied to the strip center.  Maybe not all of them, but some:

1. (old 2) Young people love cool spaces..
2. (old 3) Nightlife is most alive in places with a diverse range of uses, ideally but not required is attractive architecture.. 
3. (old 4) Older strip shopping centers provide affordable, flexible space for entrepreneurs from all backgrounds. 
4. (old 5) The creative economy thrives in low cost real estate.
5. (old 6) Older, smaller buildings provide space for a strong local economy. 
6. (old 7) Older commercial and mixed-use districts contain hidden density--maybe not so much but it can be created.

Still I wouldn't want strip centers in the core of a central city, but they can be useful in the outer city, and in fact can be quite powerful.  In the suburbs specifically, strip centers are known for being home to innovative ethnic restaurants--Tim Carman of the Washington Post and Karon Liu of the Toronto Star have been calling our attention to such places for years.

Magleby's is in the Historic H.T. Reynolds Building in Springville, Utah.  Springville is noteworthy separately for its arts museum, which has promoted the work of local artists for more than a century.  The city positions itself as "Art City" and leans into it by various promotions and urban design interventions.

I was just in a restaurant called Magleby's in an "old" building in Springville, Utah and it rocked, putting a lot of Salt Lake City restaurants to shame--but that space is what you make of it, the building is an envelope and you can use and makeover the space creatively, or not.  But the low cost of entry in a strip center, provided the owner is amenable to proposals from independent businesses, makes it a lot easier to do.

The first strip center:  Urban streets lined by block after block of low scale retail buildings.  As a child, my experience in Detroit was the major arterials were "shopping centers," as they were lined block after block by retail buildings of various sizes.  

There were "centers" within the miles of buildings often at intersections of major roads where more of a "shopping center" or conglomeration developed.  (This happened in Chicago too.)  

The one I remember when I was in elementary school was still corridor strip, but there was a grocer (Packer, then it was bought out by Wrigley), an independent neighborhood "department store" with a focus on apparel, Woolworth's--not Kresge, even though Kresge was headquartered in Detroit, that's where I would buy Matchbox cars, I don't remember if it had a soda fountain, and a branch of Federal's, a regional downscale department store chain by comparison to more upscale chains Hudson's--which still had its downtown store but was developing suburban malls and Crowley's/Demery's (they merged), which was noteworthy for having a downtown store, but also stores in major shopping districts (Wieboldt's did this in Chicago) and suburban town centers like Birmingham and Farmington.  (Oddly, Grosse Pointe was bypassed except for high end apparel, a small company called Himmelhoch's, which went out of business around 1980.)

Partly what made a shopping center maybe was a parking lot behind the liner buildings.

Corridor revitalization.  Now block after block of retail liner buildings is a problem, especially in areas where travel has shifted to the car from transit.  Addressing it is called corridor revitalization.  And it's hard.  

My recommendation has always been to focus on strengthening nodes and as they are successful, they expand outward, hopefully connecting more closely to other nodes on the street.  The community development corporation technical support organization, Local Initiatives Support Corporation, has had a focus on this for decades, Commercial Corridor Resource Hub

The Germantown Business District in better days, when the transit line was a streetcar, not a bus, and the suburbs were still minimally populated.

Another example of a very long corridor and revitalization is Germantown Avenue in Philadelphia ("Germantown neighborhood of Philadelphia is finally improving").  

The Mt. Airy and Chestnut Hill districts in the outer city thrive.  The inner districts do not.  Part of the problem may be that the main Germantown district once thrived with big department stores, and now those spaces are almost impossible to fill.

Separately, there are initiatives in Philadelphia where locally focused community development groups buy and hold properties in order to keep them accessible to and affordable by independent businesses ("BTMFBA + programs to lease the properties to local businesses | Philadelphia").  Also see "BTMFBA Chronicles: Seattle coffee shop raises money to buy its building."

The car changes the form: Park and Shop centers.  The shopping district at Plymouth and Evergreen in Detroit had parking in the back, while Hudson's malls had parking around the building.  In the 1930s, in response to the rise in car ownership, the "park and shop" was born.  It was often an L type shape with a parking lot in front.  

One of the first was in Cleveland Park DC ("The spot to Park and Shop," Washington Post).

Others that come to mind are in Silver Spring, on Cary Street in Richmond, and one in the Brookland neighborhood of DC.  

Given the strength of the real estate market, the Cleveland Park and Silver Spring examples are more chained up and restaurant focused.  

Brookland's is poorly located and has some management issues and doesn't thrive in the same way as the others.

Richmond's strip center is an integral part of Cary Street/Carytown, which is a particularly great example of a successful urban neighborhood commercial district.

Destroy or Save the Park and Shop.  Urbanists today argue that Park and Shops should be rebuilt as dense buildings, like what we advocated for on H Street NE.  From the H Street Connection to a mixed use development:

I argue that on historic preservation architectural history grounds that it's important to save historic Park and Shops ("Blacktop History," National Council on Public History), but not the 1970s-1990s strip centers.  But something is lost when those sites are converted, the retail space is no longer cheap, and independent businesses get displaced.

Cary Court Park and Shop in Richmond, Virginia.

Ideally there would be programs in place to assist those businesses in transitioning to other spaces, in having them have return rights to the new building with lowered rents, etc.

Revitalization.  In 2001, the Urban Land Institute published Ten Principles for Reinventing America’s Suburban Strips.  Although again as I have said, the various "Ten Principles" ULI publications are equally relevant to cities, even when ostensibly about suburbs.

It's possible to add housing to some.  But these days according to Chain Store Age Magazine, it's a high performing real estate "product type," especially when anchored by a grocery store.  So while it's true that as some suburbs densify (often called "urbanize") strip centers get built over ("The Future of the Strip," ULI), they're providing low cost space and attractive retail amenities keeps many in business.

Drone photo of plazaPOPS urban design interventions in Wexford Heights, Scarborough, at 2020 Lawrence Avenue East. 

In Toronto there have been initiatives to incorporate public space and urban design improvements in these centers because they are vital economically but are "meh" architecturally ("Toronto-area strip malls are foodie havens. Here’s how this project is helping them become places for people, not just cars," Toronto Star, "Messy Cities: The Ballet of the Parking Lot").

While not exactly a secret, strip malls were an underappreciated urban aspect of the city for years. In 2002, former mayor Mel Lastman even said, “Strip plazas have got to go. These things are a holy mess. Their time is over.” 

Yet they’re essential parts of our urban landscape and throughout the Greater Toronto Area have been recognized as great retail expressions of multiculturalism. Cheaper than downtown main streets, small businesses can flourish, especially true in the food scene. Previously ignored strip mall eateries are routinely celebrated, while a place like Ridgeway Plaza in Mississauga, with nearly 100 ethnic food options, has become such a foodie haven it suffers from the strain of so many people visiting. 

Seeing how strip malls, designed sometimes decades ago for motorists, have evolved into vibrant, walkable places on their own has been fascinating. Now the plazaPops project is helping them adapt more formally.

Or, communities can have big revitalization plans, like for the Takoma Crossroads Langley district spanning Montgomery and Prince George's Counties in Maryland, and soon to be a stop on the Purple Line light rail, but as Bill Lindeke points out:

Owners of these properties are reluctant to give that up a passive income stream for an expensive, risky investment.

Aerial view, Takoma Langley Crossroads at the intersection of New Hampshire Avenue and University Boulevard.  The retail mix is mostly independents, with some chains.

Why should they?  The centers are thriving, with few vacancies, and are full of businesses catering to the Latino population of "East County," even if they don't look pretty, are fronted by parking, car sewers etc.

Although I do believe these districts can be rebuilt, more urbanistically and with housing, especially when paired with rail transit.

The challenge is to maintain the uses and the proprietorship of independent businesses through and after the changes.  

That's one of the reasons wrt this district that I suggested that Montgomery and Prince George's County create a "transportation renewal district" to fund a bi-county community development corporation to buy, hold, and operate properties in the catchment area of the Purple Line, to best mitigate these types of issues in ways that the private sector isn't accustomed to doing.

-- "Creating a transportation development authority in Montgomery and Prince George's County to effectuate placemaking, retail development, and housing programs in association with the Purple Line"

Mitigation.  Ridgeway Plaza, Mississauga, Ontario. Note that Ridgeway is actually a newly constructed shopping strip, less than four years old.

The product type is still being built where it can be successful.  The relatively new Ridgeway Plaza in Mississauga, Ontario, is wildly successful because of its ethnic restaurants ("The suburb that won't sleep," New York Times, "Suburban ethnic enclaves").  But it makes it a destination for which its traffic load and patron volume was never considered.  From the NYT:

But Ridgeway’s unexpected popularity has created problems for Mississauga. The vast plaza attracts crowds at all hours of the day and night, resulting in noise and littering, too much traffic and not enough parking. There have been confrontations and even physical fights; illegal fireworks; and nuisance from vehicles, including street racing.

Such quality-of-life concerns have arisen at the same time that Mississauga’s population has been growing fast with an influx of immigrants — local developments that coincide with a broader souring of public opinion in Canada toward newcomers

Boston wonders if they can re-support nightlife based on the results so far from the World Cup

People waited to be seated outside The Union Bar. Photo: Christian Kantosky, Boston Globe.

The Boston Globe has been writing about the impact of the World Cup on the city's nightlife.

Where the Scots cleaned out alcohol supplies ("‘We’ve never seen anything like it’: Patrons emptied bars and liquor stores in Boston this weekend"), the city extended open hours till 3 am ("Governor Healey signs bill allowing 3 a.m. last call for the World Cup, expanding public drinking through July"), outdoor public drinking zones, like Bourbon Street in New Orleans, etc.  

So the Boston Globe wonders if "Boston nightlife is in the midst of a grand social experiment. Can the good vibes last?."

As someone who worked on commercial district revitalization for 20 years in DC and wrote a lot about this issue, they missed the biggest possible point and difference, the addition of many tens of thousands of people from out of the area who were there for nightlife.

-- "Aging cities | Maintaining economic dynamism in the face of aging populations at the city and metropolitan scale" (2025)

-- "Richard's Rules for Restaurant-Based Revitalization: New business models are needed for 2025" (especially the comments where I quote from relevant articles I come across)

-- "Experience economy/nightlife: Boston, LA, Pittsburgh, London, Santa Monica" (2025)

-- "Planning programming by daypart, month, season: and Boston Winter Garden, DC's Holiday Market, etc." (2016)

Bourbon Street.

Temporarily, World Cup cities are functioning more like 24/7 nightlife districts in Las Vegas, Miami, and not quite NYC, plus Bourbon Street in New Orleans, Beale Street in Memphis?.  People go to those cities to party.  

I follow Reddit Las Vegas and people write about going there and being drunk and/or high for most of their stay.  Maybe the Scots were like that.  Not Bostonians.

Plus the super posh clubs with bottle service and all night dancing, massive pool parties in Vegas, etc.

Beale Street.

A traditional city, at least in the US, just doesn't have that kind of latent populations always going out, and willing to be shitfaced and then go to work.  Concerns like:

• Having to work two jobs
• mobility when drunk
• the impact of smartphones on entertainment choices, less ability to socialize
• the cost of going out
• consumption of experiences
• labor for the establishments and the the rise of the cost of goods sold, 
• rents and changing business models due to work from home reducing office visits
• people drinking less
• People consuming edibles instead of drinking, 
• mocktails (just as expensive to produce, lower margins, 
• etc.

Make it a lot harder to go out.

Cities, sustainable mobility users, and snow

Snow clearance is hard, requires planning, and is maddening when you're trying to get around ("Why can’t Toronto remove snow like Montreal? The answers may surprise you," "No wonder it's taking so long to clear the snow, we planned it that way," Toronto Star).

For many years, around December and later I've written entries about snow clearance in cities that claim to prioritize walking-biking-transit. Rather than recap them, here's a list:

-- "Winter snow clearance in the Walking CIty," 2025

-- "Snow, winter and the "Sustainable Mobility City"," 2019

-- "A "maintenance of way" agenda for the walking and transit city," 2010
-- "Snow reminds us of the necessity of a "maintenance of way" agenda," 2013
-- "Testimony on the Winter Sidewalk Safety Amendment Act of 2011," 2011
-- "Level of service and maintenance requirements in planning #2: winter maintenance of bike paths," 2012
-- "Night-time safety: rethinking lighting in the context of a walking community," 2014
-- "Planning for Winter Weather," 2015
-- "Cataloging the various failures to remove snow in the walking/transit/bicycling city," 2015
-- "Who knew?: there is a Winter Cycling Federation and annual conference," 2015 
-- "Focusing on what's most important: snow on sidewalks or snow on cars?," 2016
-- "Winter preparedness, planning and the Walking/Biking/Transit City," 2019
-- "Walking City Wintertime: Snow and strollers in Toronto," 2019

People stand at a bus stop near Logan Circle in Washington in 2022. (Amanda Andrade-Rhoades/For The Washington Post)

I haven't been motivated to do so much this year because Salt Lake's Valley, and even the mountains although that's changing, has gotten so little snow that a shovel has been unnecessary.  

Although this photo from the Washington Post keeps reminding me.  

Many of Salt Lake's bus stops are just uncovered benches while Calgary and other cities like Winnipeg ("'If you're waiting for a bus, it is brutal' but should the city invest in heated shelters or service?," CBC) have enclosed bus shelters that are heated in the winter.  

Montreal has a special network of winter cycle paths that they commit to keeping clear after snow storms.  Arlington Virginia has a program promoting winter cycling. Many communities, including DC and Montgomery County for the Capital Crescent Trail, have snow clearance programs for trails.  Minneapolis was one of the first cities to include maintenance of way as an element of its bicycle master plan.  Salt Lake and many cities have a winter Bike to Work Day.

An enclosed shelter at Overlea Boulevard and Thorncliffe Park Drive. Like other aspects of the system, there’s concern that using the new facilities could pose a risk if COVID-19 case peak again in the fall and winter. Steve Russell / Toronto Star.

Toronto has introduced some heated shelters, with the justification that they make it easier for disabled users to use regular transit ("TTC installs 16 new heated and enclosed bus shelters," Toronto Star).

Apparently, Pittsburgh isn't getting a lot of snow, but like my blog entries, the mayor is trying to plan ahead after clearance failures ("Mayor outlines snow removal concerns," "One-third of Pittsburgh's plows were unavailable during weekend snowstorm: 'We have to invest in our fleet'," Pittsburgh Post-Gazette).  

Similarly, the Boston Globe editorializes, "The disappearing snowplow," in support of state legislation providing financial incentives for snowplow operators so that they continue to operate. 

Toronto failed spectacularly with snow clearance last year, and this year doesn't look to be better ("Toronto could make snow clearing significantly better, report finds. But the city says it can’t afford to," Toronto Star, 2025 Winter Storm Response and Winter Maintenance Program Review: Recommendations and Implementation Plan).

According to the new report from Oakville-based consultants Municipal VU Consulting Inc., a system that offers “the fastest cleanup and the highest level of service reliability” would be the most expensive, at $130 million a year, $94.4 million of which accounts for having extra staff and equipment on standby.

Liisa Nisula, an East York resident, struggles with snow-covered sidewalks in the Danforth-Coxwell area in Toronto, Thursday, February 20, 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Eduardo Lima

A lot of the coverage on last year's problems in Toronto focused on how inadequate snow clearance makes it especially hard for the disabled and those with children to get around ("People with mobility issues struggle to navigate sidewalks as cities rush to clear snow," "The magic of the snow is gone. Now we’re left with unplowed streets, dog-yellowed piles and road salt in our hair," Toronto Star). 

Other reports state schools stay closed "longer than they need to" partly because lack of snow clearance makes it hard for kids to walk to school ("Students' choice: Walk in the road or walk on the snow-covered sidewalk," Fox13).

This year, I hope the cities to the east of Utah are doing better on snow clearance for pedestrians, bicyclists and transit users.

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Dealing with blizzards can be more than a matter of sustainable mobility, it can be about emergency management more generally and physical safety ("Buffalo Leaders Weren’t Ready for Blizzard That Killed 31, Report Says," NYT).

Five months after a blizzard devastated western New York, killing 31 residents of Buffalo, a report released on Friday cited multiple failures in the ci

Emergency warnings from city officials did not adequately convey how life-threatening the storm would be, the report said. City officials didn’t spread the word about the county’s travel ban for cars quickly enough and didn’t adequately stress the dangers of walking outside. And as the storm raged on, coordination between city, county and state officials became strained.

... The city’s response did not take into account the economic disparities that have existed in Buffalo for decades, they said. Those inequities meant, for instance, that many low-income residents could not afford to stock up on extra food before the blizzard, and as a result, risked driving or even walking out into the snow to get supplies for Christmas dinner.

Experience economy/nightlife: Boston, LA, Pittsburgh, London, Santa Monica

I wrote about this issue recently, in "Ain't got that soul (when younger demographics leave the city): and musings about the nightlife economy" as well as some other pieces.  

This does not look very congenial.  BG photo.

This Boston Globe article,  "Downtown Boston is trying to find its post-pandemic identity. It’s fighting an uphill battle," hits a home run on the topic, that cities need to reshape their downtowns to remain relevant, that mixed use neighborhoods are more popular, that people tend to stay closer to home, especially if they don't work Downtown.  From the article

Measures of foot traffic and office vacancy haven’t fully rebounded. Hybrid work remains pretty common. Car traffic is worse. Empty storefronts persist. But more than anything, we just don’t mix like we did before.

A Northeastern University study of cellphone data found that when COVID hit, inhabitants of Greater Boston became far less likely to interact with people of different socioeconomic backgrounds. Those numbers have been recovering, but for many parts of the region, particularly in the suburbs, levels of what researchers call “social exploration” have fallen sharply.

And that’s bad news for a city whose culture and economy have, for centuries, been built on people mixing, connecting, and sharing ideas, said Northeastern University physicist Esteban Moro, who’s leading the study. Bad enough that it raises questions about what cities like Boston are for, now, and how we make them places that people connect once again.

... It’s an indicator of the diminished role that downtown plays in the daily lives of Bostonians. According to recent figures from the Downtown Boston Alliance, about 20,000 fewer people work downtown than they did five years ago, and they come in, on average, about three fewer days per month. Add it up, and the work trips into the core of the city district have fallen by almost half.

... “The fundamental thing that we’re asking is where are people?” she said. “Where is the center of gravity in the city, whether for shopping or for hanging out or for work? Where do people come together?”

Increasingly, that’s neighborhoods where people do more than work. While foot traffic downtown remains below pre-pandemic levels, according to city data, it’s nearly back citywide, and up in places such as Fenway and Longwood. What’s the difference? These “multipurpose” neighborhoods, as Moro describes them, provide chances to live, work, and play in more equal measure.

... To Crockett, even the word “downtown” feels a bit archaic, as it implies we’re all going to the same place. In this more splintered age, we aren’t. “If people are going to venture out of their home for any reason,” she said, “it’s to have a particular experience.”

And experience is a big part of how developers aim to draw people out now. Food halls, for instance, are springing up across the city, not just catering to office workers seeking lunch but also tourists, families, and after-hours crowds into the night.

... A slew of for-profit “Instagram museums” and immersive art experiences have recently taken up residence in hollowed-out storefronts. A Harry Potter exhibit has lately drawn throngs to an empty old Best Buy at the CambridgeSide mall. “Competitive socializing” is all the rage in the Seaport, where different venues offer mini-golf, ping pong, bowling, pickleball, or darts. And the recent arrival of new spaces where people can both shop and linger — be it at Beacon Hill Books & Cafe, or the batting-cage-boasting Dick’s House of Sport in Back Bay — are models for how businesses can transform an errand into an event.

Complementary articles I've come across and/or written about over the past few months are "Once LA's nightlife epicenter, the storied Sunset Strip has a murky future," from the San Francisco Chronicle, "An interesting public space development project in Downtown Pittsburgh: extends the range of after-work activities to keep office workers engaged," about a forthcoming space in Downtown Pittsburgh that has some of the characteristics of experiential interaction discussed in the BG, and the Los Angeles Times, "‘Experiential’ retail surges as landlords try to lure customers back to the mall," mostly about Santa Monica's Third Street Promenade and its need for change in the face of the decline of traditional retail--it had been anchored by at least two department stores, and about the reproduction of a 1970s study on people's use of public spaces ("People aren't "hanging out" as much outdoors during the workday in the center city").

Plus, this "The suffocation of Soho: how London's creative rogue is being sanitised," on London's SoHo (Evening Standard).  It's more about how permanent residents want to put strictures on businesses. 

 Westminster borough has put together a report, After Dark, about their desires to quiet things a bit.

So I guess I shouldn't have been as derisive of Mayor Bowser's similar effort in DC ("Know your market #2: DC commercial property incentives"), the issue wasn't so much an overfocus on big things and converting office into residential, but that many steps are necessary especially because there is a hard ceiling on how many people want to live Downtown.

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Also see, "Getting a filling — at the mall. Why dentists and other wellness tenants are in big demand," Los Angeles Times. and "A $100M bet on experiential entertainment by Chicago restaurant vets," Crain's Chicago Business.

Along the lines of the Pittsburgh project, "A historic gas station in Glendale becomes art when an artist fills it with color," Los Angeles Daily News, a streamlined old gas station maintained as a public art space, and "Pacific Science Center and Seattle Center forge new partnership," Seattle Times, on continuing to redefine and improve programs and spaces.

Since their creation for the 1962 Seattle World’s Fair, Pacific Science Center and the adjacent Seattle Center campus have operated independently: Seattle Center as a department of the city of Seattle and PacSci as a science and education nonprofit with its own buildings.

That’s now changing. Pacific Science Center and the city announced Wednesday morning their plans to integrate the two campuses as one public space, open to all, though PacSci will retain ownership of its buildings. The organizations will also explore city funding options for courtyard renovations and expanded public access.

The deal opens the door for more city funding and involvement for PacSci’s iconic but aging buildings. It likely also speeds up funding for the removal of its north gates and kiosks as well as improvements to its southern entrance.

Big changes are coming to Pacific Science Center, which neighbors Seattle Center.

 (Greg Gilbert / The Seattle Times.

This, leaders said, should make its beloved, currently gated courtyard more accessible, ideally by the FIFA World Cup in summer 2026. It will also help with previously announced renovations of PacSci’s aging courtyard and leaking pools.

... More broadly, the partnership charts a more sustainable path forward at a time when the future of both Pacific Science Center and Seattle Center — as well as Seattle’s downtown as a whole — are in flux, and as civic leaders aim to “revitalize” downtown ahead of the World Cup.

“This is our opportunity to help the Science Center ensure the future of its incredible campus,” said Seattle Center Director Marshall Foster, and “to breathe new life into … programming, activation, things that will give people reasons to visit Seattle Center and the Science Center.”

... But, like a cream pie, the building wasn’t really designed to survive forever — it was made to house the largest science exhibit ever assembled by the federal government at the time then move on. While the facilities ended up enduring under the umbrella of a private nonprofit, they’re in dire need of renovations, Daugherty said. Much of the courtyard isn’t ADA-accessible. The terrazzo is deteriorating. The pools are leaking.

Ain't got that soul (when younger demographics leave the city): and musings about the nightlife economy

The San Francisco Chronicle ("Why 20-somethings are abandoning San Francisco — even when they can afford it") makes the point that as the demographic of younger people shrinks in the center city, mostly due to lack of jobs or high rents, there are fewer customers for night life--bars, restaurants, etc.

“Young people supply culture and creativity, which are the beating hearts of a city,” said Assembly Member Matt Haney, who represents eastern San Francisco. “When a lot of young people leave a city, that place loses some of its soul.”

Overall, from 2013 to 2023, the share of 20-somethings in San Francisco County dropped from about 18% of the population to about 14% — the largest such decline of any major U.S. county and nearly quadruple the national drop. The data prompts a big question relating to the city’s economic future: Is this the mere ebbs and flows of San Francisco’s demographics at play, or the start of something much grimmer? ...

“You can feel the drain of young people from the city just by how empty the bars are,” said Aaron Paul, co-owner of San Francisco bars Macondray and Zhuzh. “It’s definitely a tough time to be working in nightlife.”

Positioning in neighborhoods versus entertainment districts.  I saw this in a different way in DC in terms of neighborhood demographics.  As people age they go out less to bars, spend less in restaurants, and maybe on concerts, etc.  So there is a distinct difference in clientele and positioning for restaurants in entertainment districts versus neighborhood districts, which is captured in the various "Richard's Rules for Restaurant (Food) Based Revitalization, Salt Lake City and DC's Chinatown" posts over the past 20 years.

Aging out.  And I've written about how people age out of living in "entertainment districts" as they get older, their household configuration changes, etc. I've written about this, "Daypart and age-group planning in mixed use (commercial) districts" 2009), partly in response to a Washington Post article (but there were others), "Residents of Washington's U Street Corridor Tired of Area's Growing Noise.."

Inflation and upscaling.  This has only been exacerbated by the post-covid rise in food inflation, which makes food and drink more expensive, and upward pricing more generally--e.g., $30 cocktails ("D.C.’s Minetta Tavern is an alluring chip off the old block in N.Y.," Washington Post), which makes going out even more expensive.

Sometimes restaurant pricing seems out of control.  I was looking at the tasting menus of the restaurant Gravitas in DC, which got online opprobrium because of the chef-owner's support of Elon Musk's wacking government--when government is the main business in DC--and I was somewhat shocked at the pricing.  

It's a once/year super special occasion if anything.  But the food looks amazing.  

Get the $60 upcharge for wagyu prime rib, which seems cheap compared to the caviar course that can be as much as $1800.

Similarly, the Houston Chronicle reports on two restaurant closings in the Houston Heights neighborhood.  Patton's Steakhouse, has entrees starting at $45 to $155.  The companion restaurant, Savoir, had entrees from $19 to $65.  

Patton's is not the kind of restaurant that should be placed in a neighborhood (Savoir is on the cusp) even though it's definitely a high income neighborhood, unless somehow it can develop a regional clientele that transcends its neighborhood location.  My sense is that the average neighbor might go there once/year, which isn't enough of a revenue stream.

Musings/further implications for night life in the city

1.  Reduced number of the college aged going forward.  Extending from this, another demographic trend that will negatively impact cities is the decline of the college age population.  Fewer students in college ultimately means fewer graduates moving to cities.

2.  Fewer patrons means that some places are over-supplied with entertainment districts, and likely some will suffer.  Is that a problem for H Street NE in DC ("H Street NE went from riot-torn neighborhood to success story. Now it’s lost its magic," GGW, although I wrote about this in 2023, "H Street NE nightlife district, failing?" and "A follow up on the H Street article: Learning from Philadelphia | More sophisticated daypart, retail, cultural, and experience planning").

3.  Some entertainment districts will broaden their reach by adding upscale establishments, e.g., the Minetta's Tavern mentioned above is but one of a large number of expensive choices in the Union Market district.

4.  Programming and management of the district will help some become stronger than others, remaining successful.  Union Market has a significant chunk of property owned by a sophisticated property owner and manager, while H Street NE is laissez faire with a commercial district revitalization organization and Eastern Market is encumbered by city ownership and other issues ("Eastern Market DC's 150th anniversary last weekend | And my unrealized master plan for the market").

5.  High quality transit access probably makes a difference, e.g., Union Market has a Metrorail station within walking distance, not so much for H Street NE or Ivy City.

6.  Arena/stadium entertainment districts may have similar issues.  As ticket prices increase, the patron base shrinks, and older patrons are less likely to consume a lot of alcohol or stay out later.

7.  WFH affects after work happy hour culture and sales.  Fewer workers, fewer younger workers, means happy hour is a less successful sales event.

8. Private clubs will diminish the amount of spend available to "in the wild" restaurants ("Inside Ned’s, the private club for a new generation of D.C. cool kids," Washington Post).

9.  And I forgot that Gen Z is less inclined to drink alcohol ("Why Gen Z is drinking less," TIME Magazine).

Winter snow clearance in the Walking City

A bicycle path cleared of snow in Sweden.  Reddit photo.

I used to write yearly about this, focusing on how the sustainable mobility centric city needs snow removal policies that co-equally privilege walking, biking and transit users, not just the motor vehicle parts of roads.

Moving to Salt Lake City-one of Utah's marketing slogans is "the best snow on earth"--is that ironically it doesn't snow that much in the city.  Most of the city is flat, in the valley.  The northeast sections (I live in part there), do get more snow, but it truly varies--one mile east closer to the mountains gets 2x or 3x the amount of snow we do.  Often, within a couple days the snow melts off our driveway anyway.

Of course, the mountain canyons get much more snow than Salt Lake, have avalanche threats, etc.

The city stays on top of road snow clearance, most households shovel their sidewalks, and I don't know what the city does for separated bike lanes--which aren't close to my house, and these days I am unable to bike anyway.

An intrepid bicyclist riding on a snowy road towards Georgetown, DC.  Reddit photo.

A Reddit thread complains about the quality of snow removal in DC ("Has DC's snow removal gone downhill? "), and it covers some of the same issues that got me writing those posts starting in 2009 (also my experience then working as a bicycle and pedestrian planner for Baltimore County).  

Back then it was Mayor Fenty's Administration that failed.  Surprisingly or not so surprisingly, the Reddit thread focus is on the roads--but then even pedestrians use them, especially when sidewalks aren't cleared.

I did find that my yearly "complaints" about the issue led to year-by-year-improvements.  DDOT even swiped a photo I reprinted from the Boston Globe on the topic.  But I'm not there now... GGW focuses on "snecks" but not the overall problem of snow removal in the Walking-Biking-Transit City ("Snow reveals excess roadway").

The condition of State Line Road following the previous day’s snowstorm on Monday, Jan. 6, 2025. The Missouri side on the right, Kansas side on the left. Dominick Williams dowilliams@kcstar.com  

The Kansas City Star has an article, "Kansas City overhauled its approach to snow removal. Blizzard response shows some payoff," about how the Kansas City Missouri (the Kansas side isn't doing too well with the same snowstorm) has transformed its business processes for staying on top of snow clearance, and it's a good model for other jurisdictions.

-- "Snow, winter and the "Sustainable Mobility City"," (2019)

-- "A "maintenance of way" agenda for the walking and transit city," 2010
-- "Snow reminds us of the necessity of a "maintenance of way" agenda," 2013
-- "Testimony on the Winter Sidewalk Safety Amendment Act of 2011," 2011
-- "Level of service and maintenance requirements in planning #2: winter maintenance of bike paths," 2012
-- "Night-time safety: rethinking lighting in the context of a walking community," 2014
-- "Planning for Winter Weather," 2015
-- "Cataloging the various failures to remove snow in the walking/transit/bicycling city," 2015
-- "Who knew?: there is a Winter Cycling Federation and annual conference," 2015 -- the upcoming Congress is in Montreal, February 8th-10th, 2017
-- "Focusing on what's most important: snow on sidewalks or snow on cars?," 2016
-- "Winter preparedness, planning and the Walking/Biking/Transit City," 2019
-- "Walking City Wintertime: Snow and strollers in Toronto," 2019

MOW is a term used by railroads.   And "transit city" as an urban form encompasses sustainable modes of transportation--walking, biking, and transit--based on the concepts expressed in "Transportation and Urban Form: Stages in the Spatial Evolution of the American Metropolis" by Peter Muller.

Edmonton: Winter City Strategy, Winter City Design Guidelines.  Given how much of its climate is during winter, Edmonton, Alberta has developed plans to address this.  

The strategy has four elements– Winter Life, Winter Design, Winter Economy, and Our Winter Story.

• webpage
• FOR THE LOVE OF WINTER: Winter City Strategy Implementation Plan
• Winter Design Strategy
• Winter City Design Guidelines: Transforming Edmonton into a Great Winter City

And it's worth rementioning the Winter Cycling Federation.

A follow up on the H Street article: Learning from Philadelphia | More sophisticated daypart, retail, cultural, and experience planning

-- "H Street NE nightlife district, failing?"

One of the problems with nightlife districts in DC is that retail wise they are unbalanced, focused on the night (not like how Wrigleyville by the Cubs Stadium changed once the Cubs moved from daytime to night time games; the retail was pushed out by taverns etc., see It's Hardly Sportin').

The problem is that even though we talk about restaurant or sports events patrons (like attendees of baseball games) also spending money on retail as part of their trips, increasingly people aren't interested in doing so.  It's why entertainment districts like Navy Yard and The Wharf in DC have pretty limited retail separate from the eating and drinking.

It might be that more neighborhood embedded districts, like Eastern Market ("Eastern Market DC's 150th anniversary last weekend | And my never realized master plan for the market") or H Street have a better shot at developing the retail offer.  But it has to be very focused.  And the advantage of people walking to and from transit stations (this benefited the small Upshur Street district on the 800 block in Petworth) has been diminished by the decline in transit use because of post-covid WFH.

Note that last weekend was Celebrate Petworth, the annual community festival.  It's much smaller than the H Street Festival, which is now the largest street festival in DC.  But maybe more attention needs to be paid to smaller events, and figuring out how to leverage the big festival for retail, not just eating and drinking.

It's even harder with the effect of e-commerce.  That being said, taverns and other nightlife establishments, hair salons, and medical marijuana dispensaries is unbalanced.  The Main Street commercial district revitalization program needs to have an active program of retail recruitment and support, and work to get area residents to patronize the retail.

WPVI-TV in Philadelphia reports on how the Center City District BID works on these issues ("Things to do in Center City Philadelphia: District seeing continued growth as number of businesses approach pre-pandemic levels").  Note that the Center City BID is one of the best in the country in terms of addressing such issues.  But the district has also had a lot more legacy retail and restaurants compared to sub-downtown districts like H Street NE.

From the article:

... Philadelphia ranks fourth in the country in the average daily number of pedestrians downtown -- behind New York City, Chicago and Boston. Those average daily numbers are considered a big deal for places like the Christmas Village at Love Park, which is filled with small businesses that are open every day through Christmas Eve. 

"A lot of small businesses don't necessarily have brick-and-mortar retail stores, so events like this are a significant source of their income," said John Oleski, owner of Kylie's Canine Treats. 

The CCD annual retail report is filled with promising signs of continued growth. Action News has been going through some of the new data and found that foot traffic in the heart of Center City reached 83% of 2019 levels, while residents reached 126%.

But the "neighborhood" Main Streets don't have the kinds of resources as a downtown focused BID like Center City.  They need more sophisticated technical and other supports from the city's planning office and small business office. 

Separately, Philadelphia is investing in Jeweler's Row to increase patronage ("City leaders plan changes to Jeweler's Row to attract more tourists in Philadelphia," WPVI-TV).  Part of the aim is to attract tourists visiting nearby Independence Hall, the National Park focused on the story of the American Revolution.  

Although it's tough to get those types of visitors to spend significant money on retail.  So called "cultural heritage tourists" are more focused on consuming places not things.

A big lesson from covid is that cities need to invest even more in their commercial districts, rounding them out as more balanced from retail and restaurants to include events and other experiences.

-- "From more space to socially distance to a systematic program for pedestrian districts (Park City (Utah) Main Street Car Free on Sundays)," 2020

Again, what is required is a much more sophisticated approach to daypart, retail, cultural, and event planning.  

It's tough in DC because there are so many smaller districts in DC outside of Downtown.  There are tons of Main Street programs, but they are more focused on events, less on planning and active business recruitment, although what I suggest in the Eastern Market piece:

Develop a premier food and retail business development/entrepreneurship program to identify and train potential business operators, to help them develop robust concepts, and to link them with space, financing and vendor support.  Complement this with business development services for existing businesses, and recruitment of existing businesses.  I would open this to anybody, whether or not they aim to open businesses in the Eastern Market district, Capitol Hill, or DC.  (I suggested something like this to the DC Main Street program in 2003, but it was too ambitious for them to understand.) 

The aim of course is to help businesses develop and be successful and to locate them in the Eastern Market district. That includes improving the merchandising abilities of the existing vendors.

Such programs and relatedly, business plan development and competitions, should really be run at the scale of a city.

Retail store development.  In terms of nurturing, growing and expanding strong retail concepts I have this piece, "Designing Brand Identity," although this table is updated, in the 2009 blog entry, "Retail and Restaurant Check Up Surveys." 

There's also a story in the Washington Business Journal, "After two decades, Old Town Alexandria's The Shoe Hive hasn't just survived — it's thrived and branched out," about a shoe store in Alexandria.

My experience in DC is that this is hard.  Some people have developed good, replicable concepts that surprisingly can work in more than one retail district.  

But they don't necessarily have the skill set to pull it off, and to differentiate between places it is more likely to work and less likely to work.

One example of such a store is Lou Lou Boutiques, which started out in Virginia horse country and now has 12 stores along the East Coast (I think some have closed, that at one point they had more than 13).  

Once it became successful, developers and retail lease brokers sought them out to open stores.  Probably with a good bit of tenant incentives--which are good, but if it's a bad location in terms of the store's business model, aren't enough.

Over the years, visiting various commercial districts, I've come across a bunch of great stores that had the ability, but not necessarily the capacity, to expand.

More on retail success.  "Why ask why? Because" (2007) was a response to criticism of the Main Street program when some businesses failed on the Brookland commercial corridor.  The point I made was that business failure needs to be understood not merely a declarative statement, and that a business support program can only do so much.  

The article outlines what a journal article called "retail mixes" but what I prefer to call retail store subsystems (using the concept of organizational subsystems as discussed in Social Psychology of Organizations by Katz and Kahn).    To the three mixes outlined in the article:

• goods and services
• communications
• physical distribution

I added:

• store operations

with the aim of helping retailers create more robust and successful business concepts and models.  The reason that the stores failed in Brookland had to do with weak systems and business models mostly, but also some certain stores needing a larger customer base (a/k/a "retail trade areas") than was proximate in the neighborhood.   From the entry:

The Rosenbloom article discusses the Trade Area Mix, linking broad market demand to the possibility of store (and commercial district) success: 

1. Trade Area Geography: the geographical extent of the trade area
2. Trade Area Demand: the level of consumer demand within the geographically delineated trade area
3. Trade Area Heterogeneity: the mix of consumer market segments within the trade area and the diversity of consumer demand for products and services. The greater the demand, the higher degree of heterogeneity, characterized by more offerings.

When someone says "That store closed, the X commercial district is a terrible place to do business," the reality is a lot more complicated. Was it the owner [and management]? The concept? The commercial district? The property? Access to capital? 

And it's not either/or, it can be and/and/and... For example, the Brookland commercial district has some significant spatial and access issues. Just like I write about "intra city sprawl," commercial districts need to ensure intensity and critical mass.

H Street NE nightlife district, failing?

The Washington Post has an article, "H Street was once a symbol of D.C.’s rebirth. Now it’s barely holding on," about the decline of the H Street NE entertainment district in DC, because of a rise in crime, loss in patronage, and closure of many businesses.

Since my claim to fame in urban revitalization is H Street NE:

-- "360 Apartment building + Giant Supermarket vs. a BP gas station, which would you choose?," 2013
-- "The community development approach and the revitalization of DC's H Street corridor: congruent or oppositional approaches?," 2013
-- "DC and streetcars #4: from the standpoint of stoking real estate development, the line is incredibly successful and it isn't even in service yet, and now that development is extending eastward past 15th Street," 2015
-- "The streetcar and the new potential for H Street retail revitalization," 2016

this is an important piece.

My overall take is that revitalization and commercial district success requires constant, ongoing management.  You can never stop ("MAIN STREET NICHES IN A MASS SALES WORLD," Neil Peirce, 2004).

And probably the death of Joe Englert, the impresario who helped develop many of the early establishments on the corridor, many with particularly interesting and creative business models, hasn't helped.  

In a way, he did more to revive the corridor than the city or the Main Street group I helped found, as he brought buildings, capital, vendor relationships, operators, and creative concepts together in multiple locations ("Joe Englert, DC nightlife impresario, dies | Lessons about nightlife-based revitalization," 2020).  Even more than the Atlas Theater rehabilitation.  While important, it doesn't attract enough patrons to carry an entire corridor.  

As Project for Public Spaces says, you need multiple attractions.

That being said, a Reddit entry in response to the article makes some excellent points that I wouldn't necessarily have come up with, not being there any more.  Although some people said the article overstated, that it focused on business failures, and not all the businesses, many opened within the last 18 months, that are succeeding.

1.  H Street isn't well connected to the Metrorail network.  (Been addressing that for decades. That's why I advocated for the separated blue line although now I think it should be a separated silver line.)  Union Station and NoMA are on the eastern edge, and it's a long slog to walk to the main destinations on the H Street corridor.  

The streetcar that's there is poorly connected and short--it needs to be extended east and west, which the city has really screwed up on--making a one seat ride to the commercial district easy.  It's not well connected to Union Station, and alternatively could have been connected to NoMA station.  If Union Station gets expanded as is planned, that will be corrected, but that's at 15 years away.

Flickr photo by BeyondDC.

2.  Despite the lack of a good Metrorail connection, Venture capital subsidized Uber rides back in the day made it easy and relatively inexpensive for people to get to and from H Street.  Now an Uber ride to the corridor costs $25 ("Farewell, Millennial Lifestyle Subsidy," New York Times).

3.  There's lots of competition in terms of night life districts, including the nearby Union Market and Navy Yard, both of which are much better served by Metrorail.

4.  Loss of music venues that would attract at least some people every night.

5.  More currently, inflation stoked restaurant and tavern prices has led many people to reduce their patronage of such establishments.

6.  H Street is wide and full of traffic and not so congenial for pedestrians.  Less of an issue, but an issue.

7.  Another point that's kind of interesting--commenting that residents aren't really patronizing the corridor (except for maybe the grocery stores), indirectly points out the difference between the demographics of residents versus those of commercial district patrons.  

You have to have money to be able to buy residential real estate in DC.  You have to have money to be able to afford to rent in a newly built apartment building.  So the people living in the area are maybe older and less likely to be going out to a tavern multiple times per week.  And they might rather be spending money on mortgage or rent than a high priced meal.

8.  And finally, crime.  But the other nightlife districts in DC have equally concerning crime problems too.  But no question public safety matters.  Maybe it's worth segmenting.  Crime against businesses.  And crime against patrons.  Both are bad.  Both have effects.

Ultimately, I think the two biggest issues are:

• the poor connections to Metrorail and the squandering of the opportunity of the streetcar and 
• the failure to do ongoing management of the offer, using daypart planning, especially in terms of maintenance of anchors to keep people coming throughout the week, not just on weekends.

-- "Planning programming by daypart, month, season: and Boston Winter Garden, DC's Holiday Market, etc.," 2016
-- "Little room for error: small retail business in general and in DC in particular," 2019

Speaking of daypart and retail planning, the article says that there are 20 marijuana dispensaries on H Street.  That certainly seems like an overconcentration.  

Ironically, one of my early issues was overconcentration of liquor stores on H Street--I was even featured in a Post article about it in 2003.  Then it was about loitering, littering and crime. And I raised the issue using academic research ("Spatial dynamics of alcohol availability, neighborhood structure and violent crime," Journal of Studies on Alcohol).

Many articles on marijuana dispensaries--but this focused primarily on recreational consumption, not just medical--found a strong association with increased crime, but found it declined over time ("Marijuana Dispensaries and Neighborhood Crime and Disorder in Denver, Colo," Justice Quarterly, press release explaining the article).  

My sense, since they are "medical" and the people don't consume the stuff nearby, that it's less of an issue.  But there is probably an association with crime, and in any case this contributes to a lack of retail diversity.

But transportation is the biggest issue, better connections making it easier for people to go to other nearby districts, some of which (as I wrote about in the Eastern Market piece) are more carefully managed to be constantly "on."  

This is a derivative of "Central Place theory," which I extend some in terms of thinking about intra-city districts.  I summarize this as when you have a choice between two or more districts, you choose to visit the one that's easier to get to, with more and better options ("Updating the post The "soft side" of commercial district revitalization," 2016).

If H Street doesn't measure up, it will lose out.

An idea. The problem with the streetcar is it's truncated. Until that's corrected I would upgrade the buses on H Street--the X2 line is a workhouse, but dowdy--to double deck buses.  But the city really needs to step up on the streetcar, which it has failed at for 10+ years.

Flickr photo by km_edinburgh