I know we usually tend to concentrate on all things city related, but I thought a story I came across in the News this morning might be worth a discussion here. This brings up an important trend which could actually work to the cityis favor, as I discuss below.
The article goes into detail about the current expansion of the Walden Galleria Mall out in Cheektowaga. New additions are being built onto the existing megastructure, mainly the end where the former Bon-Ton stood. Plenty of new tenants, mainly restaurants currently non-existent in the metro area, will be leasing space at the renovated mall.
The new restaurants are Cheesecake Factory, Hyde Park Steakhouse, Bravo! Cucina Italiana, The Melting Pot, Abuelo’s Mexican Food Embassy and Bar Louie.
Improv Comedy Club also will join the lineup, offering after-dinner entertainment. That’s in addition to the previously announced 16-screen cinema, which will seat 3,000.
In addition to the restaurants and comedy club, more than a dozen new retail stores will open.
That list includes Urban Outfitters, a vintage-flavored apparel shop for teens and young adults; Bebe, a fashion-forward women’s clothing store, whose spokesmodel is Mischa Barton; Metropark, an edgy apparel/music/art retailer; Lucky Jeans; Coach; Brighton Collection; and Clark’s footwear. Barnes & Noble Booksellers earlier confirmed it will open a nearly 50,000-square-foot, two-floor store in the mall.
The most striking feature about the addition is that it will be feature a faux iMain Streeti setting; a rather contrived attempt at an urban commercial streetscapeoall facing thruway traffic. This follows a nationwide trend of iLifestyle Centersi which have been replacing traditional malls over the past decade. As mentioned above, these retail complexes attempt to offer a traditional downtown shopping experience with suburban parking conveniences and a sanitized, shopping atmosphere, managed with the top-down approach. There was a post here awhile back about one of these types of development proposed for Amherst. Also, Steel wrote a great piece a few months ago on the fate of authenticity.
A good thing I can see from this trend is that mainstream developers have become more open to the concept urban streetscapes rather than just building stripmalls and enclosed shopping centers surrounded by a sea of parking.
But there is a burning question that must be raised here.
If developers are willing to built fake downtowns with fake Main Streets, whatis stopping them from taking a stab at the real deal?oHow about building authentic retail developments in real downtowns, using already-existing public streets, reusing great old buildings and taking advantage of already existing parking and transit infrastructure?
It would seem that retrofitting a few blocks of Downtown Buffalo into an authentic shopping destination would make a much better attraction than some half-baked, shoddily-built ilifestyle centeri that would barely last 15 years.
Imagine a block of downtown Main St. refitted with a Borders, Starbucks, some well known clothing retailers, and other recognizable stores. There would be ample room for local retailers to fill in the gaps and capitalize the drastically increased foot traffic that the chains would draw. The local stores, along with historic building stock, would give this setting the air of authenticity needed to formulate a real place of credibility that people love to visit. Residential and office demand would steadily rise. Everyone would win.
The argument that downtown Buffalo idoesnit have the right demographicsi for a bustling retail district is a logical fallacy. The city doesnit exist in a bubble. Downtown is a quick drive from the suburbs and itis within easy public transit and bike access of Buffalois well-off neighborhoods. Also consider that the lower-income demographic has significant spending power that is often overlooked by conventional marketing orthodoxy. Plus, shopping would not be the only thing to do downtown. Donit forget all the cultural attractions and public spaces that everyone can enjoy.
In the end a lively downtown will be more far more successful than a shopping mall. A real sense of place hosting an exciting mix of uses wins out over a single-purpose consumer trap.
Since developers have cozied up to the idea of urban flavor, hopefully they will take it all the way and invest in real downtowns instead of wasting resources on creating fake ones.
Besides all the known entrenched political issues, the greatest thing holding back downtown is simply one big collective bad attitude. Downtown Buffalo CAN do it. We DO have the demographics, a population aching for a real urban place to hang out and shop, and a bunch of local developers who need to be slapped upside the head with a 2×4 and shown ithe light.i
Are we going to do it the real or the fake way? That is the question.