You have some good questions jonesrmj. There are some smart people on this website that understand, and can articulate urban planning theory better than I can. I will try answering with example, rather than theory.
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Originally Posted by jonesrmj
I guess so too. But I'm just saying it's been a long time since we've had much impact on the skyline and considering that lots of cities all over the place are getting crazy skyscraper booms, it would be great if Wilmington is able to.
I do have some questions on your opinions:
1.) How much impact would you think a downtown/riverfront mall would make on deadzone? I think it would be cool but at the same time, we've got christina mall and concord mall that are a few miles out of the city.
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Suburban malls like Christiana and Concord mall are pretty much dead zones themselves. They fly in the face of a live/work/play environment. Typically malls consume acre after acre of paved parking lots, and don't offer much in the way of job diversity.
IMO, an indoor mall in Wilmington would be worse than not having a mall at all. But maybe Wilmington could implement a walkable, outdoor mall in one of the dead zones? If so, it may be difficult to attract shoppers because the stores would be in direct competition with the other malls you mentioned, and require most people to use a car/truck/suv to get there. From a financial standpoint, these are serious risks to consider.
Let's also realize there are so many malls already. With Internet sales increasing, brick and mortar sales decreasing, I see much less demand for malls than say 20-30 years ago.
Should we consider a mall in Wilmington? I say no way.
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2.) How come a residential/hotel tower say 15-20 floors would not impact a deadzone as much as a 6 story residential/hotel building according to you? To me, the taller one would be more money but wouldn't it still attract residents and give them better views, it would impact the skyline, and say the bottom had some retail shops, that would attract people possible too. Wouldn't that do just as much as a 6 floor just residential building?
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Let's compare one, mixed use 40 story building to eight, 5 story buildings in an area like Wilmington. Obviously this comparison would be a bit different in Philly, San Fran or NY.
A 40 story building would be built on a single parking lot. The density of that building would be very high for the area, but the surrounding parking lots / empty lots wouldn't change. People in the 40 story building would be limited in activities, and would likely be dependent on using a car, which in turns helps the nearby parking lots.
Eight, 5 story, mixed use buildings can be spread out. They could be a mix of fun architectures, and include a collection of diverse retail/restaurants on the first floor. This would have a few benefits:
1)The retail/restaurants in eight different buildings can provide a much richer, more diverse environment to eat and shop than a mall ever could.
2) The eight buildings would replace eight parking lots, and encourage foot traffic and less vehicular traffic between them. This would bring a much better sense of community and downtown "vibe", than a mall, or single building.
3) The downtown vibe would attract more and more people to want to live/work/play here. As such, the market will start to bear taller and taller buildings.
4) Now, when you put a mixed use 40 story building in the middle of a vibrant downtown, it is much easier to fill, and it helps all of the smaller building around it. Which then drives the market towards more 5 story buildings, etc..
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3.) How many deadzones would it really take to help Wilmington and for them to be able to build tons of more towers? Cause there's only so much space and the deadzone projects all look to take all space on where a skyscraper could be built?
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Good question. For this, I have no answer.