A valuable analysis has come out of Fresno CA, where they are thinking about what to do with their failed pedestrian mall – like so many in America.
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The Downtown Fresno Partnership published the report, “American Pedestrian Malls: Trends Analysis, Necessary Indicators for Success and Recommendations for Fresno’s Fulton Mall.” …
The major findings of the report are:
- Pedestrian malls in the United States have an 89% rate of failure. Most have been removed or repurposed. Only 11% have been successful.
- Of the 11% successful pedestrian malls, 80% are in areas with populations under 100,000.
- Certain indicators need to be present for a pedestrian mall to be successful in the United States:
- Attached to a major anchor such as a university (i.e. Boulder)
- Situated in close proximity to a beach (i.e. Miami, Santa Monica)
- Designed to be a short length in terms of blocks (1-4 blocks long)
- Located in a community with a population under 100,000 (i.e. New Bedford, MA)
- Located in a major tourist destination (i.e. Las Vegas, New Orleans)
- Cities that have transformed their abandoned pedestrian malls into “complete” main streets have experienced turnarounds in their downtowns, with more investment, higher occupancy rates and more pedestrian traffic. 90% of these cities see significant improvements in occupancy rates, retail sales, property values, and private sector investment in the downtown area when streets are restored.
Even shopping “high streets” and enclosed shopping malls come and go in popularity, evolve or in the case of enclosed malls, shut down.
It takes a lot of management dollars and programming to keep a private enclosed mall at the top of its game. The same would apply to an outdoor pedestrian mall (or Vancouver’s Robson Square for that matter).
There’s no reason to think that a municipally funded outdoor pedestrian mall would be any different. Even Vancouver’s Robson Street is said to be waning in popularity – with a lot of For Lease signs about. Ditto for Vancouver’s West 4th Ave. And some less than popular malls like Brentwood Town Centre and Lougheed Mall are reinventing themselves with added density. And of course, there’s location, location, location – like Vancouver’s failed International Village. The same was said of Vancouver’s Granville Street – it wasn’t the right street to pedestrianize – it wasn’t a high street to begin with.
Robson should be one long pedestrian mall from the stadium to Stanley park – a huge benefit to the community and for shoppers. Too many cars, say on Granville or 4th or Robson ruin the shopping experience, and of course, the lease rates are also often out of line for the volume of shoppers.
One of the probems with Robson being a shopping street east of Burrard is that the street grid changes.
West of Burrard, Robson has the long uninterrupted blocks, trapping shoppers.
East of Burrard, you have the short ends of the blocks as well as alleys chopping up the “promenade”. So not only do you have more dispersion of shoppers down side streets, you also have fewer and smaller retail spaces.
Indeed. But the core issue is far too narrow sidewalks and far too many cars. generally an unpleasant shopping experience. It could be a great green oasis with benches, jugglers, musicians, trees and more shops.
I’d say close it fro cars and enhance it in a green shopping street and the transformation, after initial whining by the shop keepers, will be amazing.
Downtown Vancouver (away from te awesome waterfront) is quite ugly and needs a facelift. Why not start right here ?