Quote:
Originally Posted by waterloowarrior
Yeah I didn't bother fixing those (quick and dirty version), I'm sure they could be reconfigured.
It's nice that they are closer to the street (better than the setback version like Innes Wal-Mart), but one problem with that is it creates big gaps on the street, with no activity except for parking lots and trees screening them and the occaisional PAD. The people walking along the street face blank walls from the side of the building rather than storefronts. It may not seem important, but it creates an unattractive streetscape and an unpleasant walk. It doesn't attract the type of development or stores a mainstreet environment does (still autocentric)
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Yes I know the parking was rough. The point was that the loading docks will still have to be back there and you end with the people interacting with trucks problem.
Having grown up out in the burbs (and beyond) and spent enough time on Innes road and the like, I can say realistically no one is walking to these places. Frankly Inness road is the last place I care to take a walk in Orleans. There is nice pathways which give a much shorter trip than streets do. This is one characteristic the suburbs have: If you walking avoid streets because they are much longer. None the less to go Walmart or Future shop there is a vehicle involved. Now we would prefer a bus to to car certainly but we will get both at these places. So I always really judged these things on what I get when I get off a bus. What I get with Walmart on Innes is a HUGE walk across a HUGE parking lot. If you right angled the store to the street you would not have to cross any roadways since it could T- right off the street. The experience for someone arriving in a car (lets say with kids in tow) remains roughly the same: no trucks, just regular parking lot traffic.
The benefit for the store is that if they put the signage on their building (front and back) towards the street end of the building they are also more visible than a mile in. They also can stick with there current store layouts and have parking visible from the street (which most retailers deem important for reason I do not understand..even the ones on Bank Street can not possibly lose that one parking space in front of their store).
These developments seem to have no issue with attracting stores..they are good for that. The innes area now has more square footage than Place D'Orleans which has never been full since they expanded it almost 20 years ago.
The amazing thing is since Walmart moved to Innes I have only set foot in it once and I was actually meeting a friend at Boston Pizza and arrived a bit early and need to kill time. I bought nothing. At the mall I was in the store at least once a week. The mall has a transit station....enough said.
A diagram of what I had in mind for say where Walmart is on Innes. The other small restaurants can go along the rest of the frontage as they are now.
