****warning: long post ahead!****
So in the Phoenix Development News thread I mentioned hoping the Democratic Convention comes here in 2012 which got me looking at pictures of Denvers convention. I saw dozens of pictures of their
16th Street Mall and was quite impressed. I then talked to a few buddies of mine who live in Portland about the
Portland Transit Mall which also seems cool. So being a jealous type I thought- we need something like that here!
Obviously Phoenix is hyper car oriented and I think having one street that was for pedestrians would be quite welcome. Downtown is starting to have a lot going for it but like we've bemoaned before everything is very sporadically spread out. Looking at the map I realized 3rd Street seems like an ideal place for a Pedestrian Mall because it would tie together Roosevelt Row/the arts area, the Central Business District and the Convention Center, ASU downtown and the future Jackson Street Entertainment district.
I imagine you could do the project in two phases, first from Jackson Street to Fillmore, then from Fillmore to Hance Park. What it would entail is closing the street off to all motorized traffic except for circulator buses (one lane, each direction). The sidewalks would be widened (using permeable pavers of course) and large planter strips could replace former traffic lanes. My thinking is a big investment in infrastructure like this from the City would greatly entice developers to build and infill along it. By doing the Northern phase second you would give potential developers time to buy up those lots and make plans so that projects were either under construction or shovel ready at the appropriate time.
So going from South to North, here's my idea:
Jackson St to Jefferson St: We already know the Jackson St group wants to wrap the garage in someway and thats excellent. The mall would eliminate garage access for cars along 3rd street but theres still access along Jackson and 4th St/Dbacks Way, so it shouldn't be too big of an issue.
Since this would be the south terminus of the Mall there should be some sort of landmark. Perhaps a fountain or sizable piece of public art in a plaza. Perhaps Paul Coze's terrific
Phoenix sculpture could be rehabbed, put back on its pedestal, have its fire feature reinstalled and placed there- such a prominent local artist deserves to have his work somewhere cooler than in front of strip center.
The mall in this area should be carefully designed to feel connected to the Suns Bud Light Paseo as well as the D'backs plaza. Use of common trees, signage, etc. would help. A lot of signage in this area about the sports teams seems sensible.
Finally, hopefully the amenity of the Mall and the economy eventually recovering would entice Sarver & Co to bring back their plans for the W this time without touching the Sun Merc building.
Jefferson to Washington: This would be a tricky section since the old Civic Plaza is so poorly designed from a pedestrian/urbanity point of view. Hopefully in the future it would be demolish and replaced with something along the lines of the Convention Center West Building on the North half of the block. This would allow for the south half of the block to be redeveloped into something else, perhaps an office tower or hotel but of course with retail facing the 3rd St Mall and Jefferson.
In the short term, the driveway that fronts 3rd street for the C.C. South building could be turned into a grassy area.
Then there's the big Colliers pad, hopefully the creation of the mall would encourage Colliers to get off their asses and plop a Marriott there. Though if a hotel were put there it would have to have its car entry area off of Jefferson and not 3rd. Theres already some existing potential for retail in the Colliers center facing 3rd street but its empty since 3rd street currently seems like a back alley. See here:
Obviously with the LRT stops on Washington and Jefferson on either side of 3rd street signage and the design would have to work to tie those in.
Washington to Monroe: This block always seems to be closed off for Convention Center stuff anyway, may as well make it permanent! During the LRT/CC opening we saw it already works well as is as a pedestrian mall and with the improvements it would obviously be much better:
The driveway for the North building along 3rd street could perhaps be replaced with a turn in along Washington (eliminating some of that large planter) if its absolutely necessary. The current driveway could be replaced with perhaps some semi permanent structures like a large newspaper stand, an 'Ambassadors' kiosk/hut and the like. Unfortunately as we all know the CC food court is inward facing but it does seem like there are a few places in the CC that could be rented out for retail:
Monroe to Van Buren: This block bounded by St Marys and the Herber currently offers nothing in the way of street facing, pedestrian oriented development. However theres a parking lot on the North side of the St Marys block that could be developed. Furthermore we heard in the last economic upswing of some talk about the Herbgers tree garden on its East side being developed so that idea could be rekindled. Losing the trees shouldn't bee too much of a concern as they'd be replaced many times over with the mall (those very trees could just be replanted).
Van Buren to Fillmore: This block would make or break the project I'd guess. Before undertaking the project the City would have to make sure the owners of the AZ Center who are wanting to rehab it would completely reorient it to 3rd street. It would probably mean demolishing the current Western half of the Az Center and turn into apartments or condos above retail.
The AMC could be downsized from 24 screens to maybe 16 or so and have its entrance facing Taylor Street. This reorientation would be key to give the small Taylor street mall a strong Eastern terminus and tie it into the 3rd Street Mall. With the remaining space no longer being used for theaters perhaps something like a Target or some other sort of department store would have room to move in and finally give downtown retail that anchor tenant it needs.
The grey concrete garage at 3rd/Taylor would need to be wrapped in retail on the first level. Sheraton traffic would have to be restricted to only entering off of 2nd street, but they can deal.
Fillmore to McKinley: This 2 block stretch is currently a mess, but Alta Lofts are helping out. Alta won't have retail facing 3rd Street, but they do have apartments with porches facing 3rd so its permeable in a way:
Hopefully the announcement of the Mall project would entice the owners of the very suburban "Met" apartments to raze them and put something more pedestrian and higher density there. Additionally it would be nice to see Pierce Street punch through again since small blocks are of course a good thing.
Somewhere along the length of the Mall I feel like a traditional plaza/square would be necessary to provide relief from the linear nature of it. The current empty lot on the NE corner of Pierce/3rd might be a good candidate. It was once slated for the always dubious seeming Cosmo Towers and perhaps the city could either acquire it or work with the owners to create a Square. It would have to have double sided retail along 4th St and have retail facing it along the North half of the lot. Alta Lofts already has potential retail space facing it:
McKinley to Garfield: This block already has the Roosevelt, Bunky Boutique, Red Dogg Gallery and Holgas on it, so its doing pretty well. The Mall would prevent people from parking directly in front of those places but I think most people already walk to them and street parking would remain available on McKinely and Garfield, so no issue there.
The current empty lot on the East side of the street would have to be developed into something of pretty good density (8+ stories) in order to give this area the needed amount of pedestrian life. Hopefully the uses of the street fronting retail would compliment the existing stuff and put people on the streets at hours where they aren't already there. Maybe another bar/nightlife type place would be good to compliment the Roosevelt.
Garfield to Roosevelt: This is currently one of the biggest stretches of moonscapes in downtown- but hey that means opportunity! Downtown still needs a more affordable grocery option. Something like a Fresh & Easy on one of these blocks below (non luxury) apartments would be ideal.
I've seen it proposed in other places, but the intersection of 3rd/4th and Roosevelt should be turned into a roundabout. 4th St could be converted to two way traffic to help make up for the loss of lanes along 3rd street. The roundabout would create a more suitable entry point to downtown and could have some sort of large public art in the center of it (surrounded by a xeriscaped garden).
Roosevelt to Hance Park: The existing structures would make this area tricky to turn into something walkable. Hopefully the city could work with the Scientology folks to replace their awful surface lot with something... anything!
3rd street in this area is extremely wide which is somewhat understandable since there's an I-10 exit/entrance, however since its just an HOV ramp, 3rd still seems unnecessarily wide. You could keep say 3 lanes on the East side of the street and plant a large hedgerow (like you see on Rural creating a barrier for ASUs athletic facilities between Rio Salado and University) to create a visual and sound barrier from the traffic.
Unfortunately the best places for infill and development are on the lots on the East side of the street and there's no way the city is going to completely shut down 3rd street due to the I-10. Hopefully those lots could still be developed and people could cross at Moreland & Portland.
The project could terminate where the parking lot on the East side of Hance Park is. That lot should be done away with (perhaps just leaving a small place for shuttles to turn around) and the park expanded. The Phoenix Center buildings need some rehab and could actually see increased some use if the Mall project was successful. This structure in particular could be used as a theater (I think it may already be, but it looks so shitty you'd never know):
Anyway I know the last thing the city wants to do in this economy is think of another big project, but its probably best to start thinking of things like this now anyway so they could be proposed in the next upswing. A project like this could be a "Centennial Project" as well and hopefully have at least the first phase complete by 2012. I think in order for it to be successful the city would also have to work on at least improving the planter strips for 2 blocks in each direction of the intersecting streets so that the Mall doesn't feel like a nice strip in a sea of rundown crap.
Theres been a lot of talk about how Downtown is out of the big project/magic bullet business but I think something like this could be the last thing that ties the whole package together. It would connect the future Jackson St district, cultural and sports facilities (USAC, Symphony Hall, Herberger, etc), the Convention Center, hotels, ASU downtown, office buildings and the arts area which would hopefully infill with a lot more residential. It would give downtown the grand entry point it clearly needs and give it a lot more green space and heat island relief. It could really be the spinal cord of the "Connected Oasis" idea that the Urban Form project proposed.
So anyhow, is this idea completely retarded? Partially retarded? According to Wikipedia there's not many places like this in the US (Denver, Portland, Long Beach, Minneapolis and Santa Clara have them) and it would give us something thats fairly unique but not so outside of the box as to be unproven and too 'unsafe' for our conservative city.
EDIT: Here are some pictures of Denvers 16th St mall to give you an idea of how cool it can look:
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