Retail Report
The
Built Environment (0.29 mb)
Corporations and planners have in common the
fact that they are both charged with projecting the impacts of their
actions 5, 10 and 20 years into the future.
A retailer’s investors count on the decisions that are made today
adding up to profits at some future point in time.
A city planner’s investors - the residents and businesses of the
neighborhoods and cities that they are planning for - expect that the
overall health of the community, and their individual well-being, will
grow with time. Competition is
ripe in both of these markets. If
the corporation or planners fail, they will lose their investors to other,
more successful offerings.
One of the challenges planners face in this regard is in shaping the
design of buildings, neighborhoods and cities. Planners
must strive to ensure that what is built today will not become prematurely
obsolete and thus lead to a loss of residents and businesses.
At the same time, they may seek to limit the amount of development,
managing a sustainable level of growth that is appropriate to the
community at hand. For
examples, planners need look no further than some of the physically
segregated, auto-oriented retail environments that have been built over
the last several decades. While
they may be retail formats that many shoppers demand today, these
typologies have been over built and signs of transition are already
evident.
Inherent to this dilemma is the fact that many of these retailers
are building structures in stark contrast to those that benefited from the
long-term foresight of builders from a century ago.
A big box made of corrugated metal and cinder block, set hundreds
of feet back from the nearest road, with embellishment only suitable to a
specific brand or corporation does not smack of permanence or of a life
span beyond its first tenant’s lifetime.
Many of our nation’s most treasured buildings, on the other hand,
were built more than 100 years ago and will likely remain standing for
another 100.
The enduring quality of these buildings is evidenced by their
ability to be reused dozens of times over.
Turn-of-the-century warehouses have become offices, artists’
lofts and residential condominiums. Their
longevity is further supported by the fact that they exist in tightly
woven, mixed-use neighborhoods where many resources are shared and users
of all types keep buildings occupied and streets and sidewalks active.
There may yet be a use for the obsolete malls, strip centers and big
boxes of today, but the current trend is to operate them until they are no
longer profitable and then either abandon them or tear them down and build
anew. Many communities
consider themselves lucky if the latter is the case, particularly in slow
or no-growth regions like
Northeast Ohio
. This method is not
sustainable economically or environmentally.
New strategies have already begun to address this problem and
others are evolving, even as these poorly conceived, short-sighted
developments continue to spread across much of the country.
It is essential that planners and legislators address these issues
and pursue progressive solutions to building and site design; sustainable
site planning; zoning reformation; investment in sustainable building
practices; and finance of sustainable development.
