Scot in San Jose:
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On my recent visit to the Bay Area I had an opportunity to walk a high-profile urban infill project that had been on my radar for awhile.
Santana Row is a 647,000-square foot, mixed-use development in San Jose. The development is an upscale destination for shopping, dining, living and working. including 834 apartments (615 luxury rental suites, 219 privately owned condos) and 65,000 square feet of office space. Santana Row replaced the dated Town and Country shopping mall as seen in the before and after aerial photos.
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The site plan for Santana Row is a simple grid focused on its namesake central boulevard. Although I found the faux-Parisian architecture a bit trite, the scale and program of the development works well: luxury shops and restaurants line the well-designed streetscapes with apartments located above.
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Apartment tenants can access their buildings from the main street by a series of connecting passageways leading to gated entry courtyards adding to the streetscene.
There are a variety of street cross sections along the central spine, ranging from parallel parking on the northern section to alfresco dining areas hard up against the curb in the southern end of Santana Row.
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Santana Rows strongest placemaking gestures occur at the end of the central boulevard where the road splits into two, giving way to a wide median loaded with programmed spaces and great activation nodes. Large specimen oak trees have been retained onsite with outstanding effect, shaping space for satellite outdoor restaurants, Kiosks, playful zones with giant chess sets and area to linger and people watch. In addition the street accommodates Farmers Markets on Sundays and the odd classic car show on various weekends.
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This is of course California where the car is king and unfortunately Santana Row’s carefully crafted pedestrian scale shopping precinct in supported by some 3,500 parking spaces hidden from view.
It is disappointing that the development is so internalized and has largely turned its back on the surrounding neighbourhood – perhaps not surprising considering the surrounding arterials are large capacity stroads void of pedestrian life.
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Love the analysis! Helps me understand what makes a city work for people. Thank you!
And this is where Carlos Fuente’s Laura . . .
http://members.shaw.ca/urbanismo/la.condessa/la.condesa.html
Dias lived . . .
PS And one evening as I was driving by with a lady friend I proudly pointed out an example of, what I considered to be, a fine example of Mexican contemporary architecture.
Her response, with an upperty sniff, “esta un club nocturno“.
This is one of the first so-called lifestyle developments in the US, thanks in large part to San Jose’s now defunct redevelopment agency.
I think the redevelopment agency was removed statewide not just San Jose?
Scot – correct.
This type of development would be a good fit for stadium area or the “Entertainment District”, where the Las Vegas style casino is being built. Maybe do a Venice theme along False Creek.
I wish we had more “faux” architecture around here.
Were you being tongue in cheek? If not, I expect you will spend many happy hours at the Disneyesque outlet mall being built by the airport.
It seems like a nice place. If I personally would hang out there would depend mostly on what things costed at places.
I am reading criticisms of placemaking and my opinion is that it is like lots of other things. It can be good or it can be bad depending on things that could be intangible or they can be figured out. It’s probably good to start with a place that already has some natural appeal anyway and extend that. Starting from nothing may or may not work. Or it might sit underused for a decade until it’s discovered and then it works.
Were the places in Paris, that these sort of emulate an instant success or did it take awhile for things to gel?
Beaubourg? Port-Cergy (Cergy-Pontoise new town) works fairly well too.
The Development is what it is, a upscale outdoor shopping mall. It will never be a historic neighbourhood but if you are going to build something do it right, put as much effort and detail into it as you can. The developers of Santana Row have done this in my opinion, sure you could swap out the Faux architecture for something more contemporary but the bones are all there and the incorporation of multi programs (shopping, dining, hotel with residential apartments and office space) is strong. The attention to scale and especially the preservation of specimen trees is to be applauded. I would love it if more spaces in Vancouver were built around old focal trees adding randomness and enhancing sense of place