Quote:
Originally Posted by DistrictDirt
Besides the saturation issue, there's the design issue. Walking through a central business district should not feel like you're moving from one isolated shopping mall to the next, with nothing of interest in between. It should feel like one continuous "fabric" of restaurants, shops, apartments, pedestrians, traffic, etc.
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This is my gripe about Old Town/Pasadena and Gaslamp/San Diego. They feel fabricated and engineered. They don't feel like they developed organically. That said, I don't think Figat7th and The Bloc are going to feel the same way. There's simply too much else going on over there. It's a mix now of office, retail and residential. And the designs are so different it's not going to feel like a single outdoor mall.
I think what's going to happen is that high-end chain stuff will end up in south park and that historic core will be a mix of indie shops and edgier brand store (Acne for example), at least in the short to medium term. As it builds out, perhaps higher end stuff will migrate east. Can anyone think of an example established higher end chain that took that much of a location risk?
I really like the Bringing Back Broadway initiative, but I think the Core as a whole needs a plan like this. While the core as a whole will benefit from the Broadway plan, it seems too focused on just one street (albeit one that has the farthest to go and with perhaps the most potential).