Quote:
Originally Posted by Phillip
Enclosed "suburban-style" malls do work in some downtowns. SF Center (also a Westfield); Pioneer Place in Portland; Westlake in Seattle. Those cities have the critical mass of downtown residents, workers, and tourists that Sacramento just doesn't have yet.
I don't view Westfield as the main enemy here. Sacramento's demographics and the proliferation of suburban shopping alternatives are more the culprits. DTP was in decline before Westfield bought it. Westfield could have done some things differently or better at DTP, maybe slowing the rate of decline, but I don't think they or any other mall manager could have transformed or saved DTP once the customer base had already drifted away.
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I could differ with you on how suburban
and successful those other downtown malls really are
but I never said they couldn't work (although they do rely heavily on suburban tourist-shoppers). I said that the concept of putting suburban-style malls downtown is wrong. There's difference. I don't think just because the "freak shows" sold lots of tickets that it was a good idea.
Suburbia did not invent the enclosed shopping mall -the downtown arcades came first but they were not filled with generic (anywhere stores) and most took public transit to get there. Plenty of people still live or work close enough to the downtown plaza to make it succeed if they would cater to their needs but Westfield doesn't know how or care to know how to attract these "city" people or those suburban dwelling "urbanites".
Maybe you don't know the recent downtown history but Westfield
is an enemy here because they have over and over again tried and sadly suceeded in derailing downtown projects they deemed as a competitive threat.
It's
not true that the Downtown Plaza was in decline before Westfield bought it and when they did they stripped it of any hint of urbanity -once they put the kiddie play land in it was over.
I'm not sure what you mean by saying Sacramento's demographics has something to do with it but DTP's customer base drifted away because, unlike it's predecessor, the company specialized in the suburban mall model which stopped appealing to urbanites long ago.