Quote:
Originally Posted by sirkingwilliam
Broadway St has enough retail or enough potential buildings for retail that first floor retail in those buildings isn't a nessecery.
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I might be in the minority, but I disagree with this statement. I live in River North and am extremely frustrated by the lack of retail around me. The new apartments are great, but now that we have a substantial amount of units in the area, the city should really be requiring ground floor retail if they're going to continue to give developers incentives, especially for properties directly on Broadway or the River. Broadway has so much potential to be walkable, but when new apartments take up a full city block and offer nothing to the surrounding community (*cough* Rivera *cough*), it is a SERIOUS missed opportunity.
The new apartments are taking advantage of what others have built without contributing anything other than more people.
I love living at The Pearl. I just wish there were MORE places to stop and grab a drink or a bite to eat or shop along the River or Broadway in between all of these places. When there is a giant McMansion apartment with no ground floor retail, it disconnects the retail on either side of it from each other. River North feels extremely segmented to me, with little places here and there to go eat but no real community feel, except within Pearl.
Yes--development with no retail is better than nothing at all, but do we really need to settle for that at this point?
Again, this is just my personal opinion (read: rant). Also, I believe that if the people in this forum were in charge, we would be much better off.
