Quote:
Originally Posted by David1502
Here are some thoughts I have after spending last week (7 days) in both Northern and Southern California:
1. Bridge Street is not meant to replicate Santana Row, but instead is a carbon copy of The Grove shopping Center in L.A. The whole layout and architecture are the same, it is unbelievable. The main difference is that The Grove has higher end retail as it is anchored by Nordstrom and Crate and Barrel. However, it is easy for these high end stores to make it as The Grove is located between Beverly Hills and Hollywood, adjacent to the exciting which I wish every city had!
2. I also walked Santana Row and while it does have a residential portion to it, it is just incidental. The high end stores like Gucci, Crate and Barrel, Brooks Brothers, etc. as well as Best Buy can't make it on the renters in the apartments above the stores and restaurants. In fact, I would bet the customer base for these expensive boutiques and cafes lies to the west in the affluent enclaves of Los Gatos and Saratoga.
3. The bigger picture to me about San Jose is that while its downtown is making a comeback, other than those attending conventions, there isn't much attraction for the locals to go there. I say this as one who works a trade show every year at the McHenry San Jose Convention Center and the feeling I get is if my trade show weren't there that week, all of the restuarants like Original Joe's, Scott's Seafood, etc. would be hurting. In fact when I'm there, I ususally take the 23 bus to Valley Fair Mall and Santana Row which is just across the street. Other than Walgreens, Downtown San Jose has no retail attractions. San Francisco, by contrast is one bif outdoor mall and Palo Alto has a very vibrant downtown on University Ave.
4. To bring this back to Huntsville, the challenge the downtown area faces is that the cities most affluent neighborhood lies on its eastern edge and those homeowners do not want a typical "big city" downtown on their front door. Their concerns are security and maintaining their property values. (Also, they proabably don't want a nightclub district in their backyards either.) Therefore, the height restrictions were put in place. Parking is also an issue, too. At the present time, there isn't much to attract the locals after they have eaten a meal there - there's not even a Starbucks to hang out in.
5. To make Downtown Huntsville a destination, the city needs to consider creating a Farmers Market like L.A. has with mostly unusual restaurants and some of your traditional produce vendors. Nashville has a thriving Farmers Market (located behind the Capitol Bldg.)which has a good selection of prepared foods.
5. The Courthouse Square in Athens, AL has probably the most vibrant downtown I have seen outside of major cities and Oxford, MS. They have some really unique stores like U.G. White (a hardware store that also sells apparel, guns, you name it) and Bennett's Department store (which sells Vineyard Vines, Polo, etc.) and many other stores that are not found in a mall. There is also a good selection of non-chain restaurants. Huntsville should look to Athens for inspiration.
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To your point 1 and 2) I had forgotten about that mall down south. You are right. Bridge street is almost exactly the same as the grove. I can guarantee people would rather hang out at Santana Row than at the Grove. LA is a different culture than the bay area. To you point on Santana Row's housing being incidental is not accurate. While people that live there do not go to Gucci, Crate and Barrel, Brooks Brothers every day, they do go to the bars and restaurants everyday. The shopping is more about the visitors that shop. I lived in the row for 3 years and I can tell you that most the people that live there, eats out every night, go to one of the bars nightly. I ran into so many locals (people that live in the development) each night, it formed a sense of community. The people that live there also draws more people to create a more lively atmosphere and they do shop which helps it be successful. The whole area around santana row is a draw for everyone in the south bay not just from los gatos and saratoga. With the median income of 87k and avg household over 100k, and with a population of 300,000 within a 2 mile radius, that is the consumer base. The south bay is 1.9 million people and they all go to santana row at some point. So the money is not only limited to los gatos and saratoga.
LA is not a model for anything other than driving and what suburbia and sprawl does to a city. LA has a lot of good interesting points to it but you also have to drive a lot to do anything. Most people don't like that(even the locals but they are used to it) and LA has learned from its past and trying to make each city that makes up the LA area more walkable and vibrant and carless. LA went from having very few bus and trains lines 20 years ago to having one of the best in the country now. The farmer's market you are speaking of has had a long history and its an truly awesome place. Seattle, SF, SJ, NYC, Chicago all have urban markets like these. It would be great if they brought this concept to the huntsville depot.. it would be a great fit with the Star's new stadium next door.
Point 3) Downtown has struggled since the 50's to find its own footing b/c of developments like santana row that circle downtown san jose. These kind of developments draw people away from the core of downtown. Downtown has spent billions trying to bring people back downtown and its working. The reason I mention huntsville could learn from San Jose, is for the fact that san jose could share what they did wrong and what they did right to help huntsville shorten the learning curve to revitalize downtown huntsville. It is a direct comparison to what i see huntsville going through now. Downtown San Jose does have many residents downtown and they are a lot to do. Did you go to the full time farmer's market downtown? did you go to a shark's game? the imax theater? the tech museum? the 273 restaurants downtown? did you go to one of the 30 clubs downtown? Soon the A's will be moving downtown to bring another venue. Your statement about downtown is unfounded.
Point 4) A lot of the people here are not used to having a "real city experience" i.e SF, LA, SJ etc. You mention protecting land values but allowing mid-rise and high-rise development next to your property does nothing but raise your property value. It is true all across the country. Let takes the Belk Hundson Loft development and evaluate that they development has done with the property value on the empty lots around it. It you investigate, you will find that all those empty lots have suddenly increased in land value. Just because you bring density, doesn't mean you bring crime and seeded element. Parking downtown huntsville is no issue at all. There are parking everywhere and most of it is free. It is one area they have done very well. In SF, at any give time of the day, they are 800,000 cars on the street and only 600,000 parking places. As long as development includes parking like most of developments in downtown huntsville do/will, I ever see parking being an issue in huntsville.
Point 5 and 6) I do think they courthouse needs to be moved away from the square and making the building office space and at least getting the lawyers off the ground floor of most of the building/retail space around the square would go a very long ways into pulling people back downtown like in Athens. The courthouse building, inside, is an architectural masterpiece, while the outside facade could use some work. This building is an awesome addition to the community. It would be better to have the courthouse a few blocks off the square which i think we have talked about on here before. What makes Athen's downtown vibrate, is that they have people living in it as well as around it and the population density is enough to make shop and stores want to locate downtown. Making a downtown walkable and enjoyable is also a draw. People like to be around other people and downtown huntsville is beginning to do things to bring people back downtown like skating during the holidays, hockey games, theater, big springs park, new development by the hospital.
I guess my point to all of this is that I am here now and I want to live in a vibrant and walkable city. One that I dont have to drive everywhere to do anything. I also dont want to have to wait 20 years for the city to figure out how to make that possible when they can learn from mistakes and successes of other cities now and speed everything up and improve everyone's standard of living.
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