America's Ugly Strip Malls Were Caused By Government Regulation (Commentary)

[dave8721]

Its not that hard. Miami banned parking in front of strip malls in new construction ~10 years ago. No one really complained and it hasn't hurt the retail. Even in more suburban parts of the City.

Typical new strip mall construction. Parking in the rear:
https://www.google.com/maps/place/65...1!1e1?hl=en-us

more:
https://www.google.com/maps/place/65...1!1e1?hl=en-us

new convenience strore/grocery had to put parking in the back and sheild it with a covered walkway to sheild the lot from view from the street:
https://www.google.com/maps/@25.7658...1!1e1?hl=en-us

modern fast food construction. Restaurant faces the street, parking in the rear. Collanade over the sidewalk to hide the lot from the street:
https://www.google.com/maps/@25.7658...i6656?hl=en-us

New bank construction. Parking in the rear:
https://www.google.com/maps/@25.8389...1!1e1?hl=en-us

...but then you leave the City limits and see beautiful new landscapes like this. Think they built enough parking?
https://www.google.com/maps/@25.7703...i6656?hl=en-us

[scalziand]

Originally Posted by M II A II R II K

Caused by bad government regulations.

The strip mall could be at the sidewalk and the parking at the back and out of sight if there had to be any strip malls.

Originally Posted by The North One

Why can't strip malls at the very least have the parking behind the main structure allowing the store fronts to come up to the sidewalk and road?

Edit: ^^^ You beat me to it

Originally Posted by NorthernDancer

The worst is when they build retail like that, but pedestrians still have to walk around to the parking side to enter the stores. Toronto's suburbs have had some developments like that where there are few if any entrances along the streetside even though the buildings do front the sidewalk.

Stores generally don't like having both front and rear entrances though. It messes with security and loading dock/boh space.

Anchor stores in malls don't seem to mind though.

[Gordo]

Originally Posted by NorthernDancer

No, I was talking more like what Centrolpolis posted. Here are a couple of examples from Mississauga:

https://www.google.com/maps/@43.5151...8i6656!6m1!1e1

https://www.google.com/maps/@43.5806...8i6656!6m1!1e1

https://www.google.com/maps/@43.5802...8i6656!6m1!1e1

I actually thought they might be unique to the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area, as I had never seen them anywhere else. Looks like they're not though.

Gotcha, I missed your note about the "50's" and was thinking of modern examples of crappy strip malls built with housing on top.

[Reverberation]

It's next to impossible today to build this;


library.csun.edu

Where it is done, it's almost exclusively along private roads within a development - as opposed to along public roads.

So imagine you buy some land and have this great vision of a beautiful walkable commercial district. Then draw the ROW lines and room for detention, then any setbacks, then any easements that may cross the land. That's where you can put buildings provided that you can park them.

The American urban city as we love it (pre-1960) is effectively illegal now unless you have lots of time and money for lawyers. Whenever new rules are added, however well-meaning they are, they never seem to get rid of the old ones. It's why everything is shit now. If you want those rules relaxed, people act as if you want to abolish the permit process altogether.

[mhays]

A lot of cities have zoning that makes urbanity possible including good retail streets. It's not necessarily easy but a ton of it gets built. Much of it is 60' or 200' of frontage at a time.

The example in the photo doesn't look very good. Unpleasant.

[ChargerCarl]

Once again, the biggest problem with that photo is how wide the damn street is.

[C.]

Originally Posted by chris08876

I see a lot of these type of developments spring up in NJ suburbs. The ones that are usually 4-5 floors; where the 1st floor is some sort of retail. Granted, I'd much rather have these built versus:



OR



With the 4-5 floor apartments with retail in the base, there is a substantial amount of parking, but what can we do. This is the suburbs we are talking. Still, a better alternative than cookie cutter homes or strip malls with no dense residential nearby.

It gets a lot of bad publicity, but I'm a fan of the Houston Doughnut to conceal parking.



https://goo.gl/maps/AJMcmwz34xQ2

[mhays]

Texas doughnuts are more efficient on large blocks than small ones, but it's still inefficient and not very liveable compared to below-grade.

Imagine if the parking was housing. It would be skinnier than the current 120' or so width because apartments aren't 55' deep, but imagine that alignment. They could easily add 100-150 units.

Regarding liveability, those courtyards would probably be nicer without the open parking garage. There might be more dogs but there would be fewer horns etc.

[dave8721]

Originally Posted by mhays

Texas doughnuts are more efficient on large blocks than small ones, but it's still inefficient and not very liveable compared to below-grade.

Imagine if the parking was housing. It would be skinnier than the current 120' or so width because apartments aren't 55' deep, but imagine that alignment. They could easily add 100-150 units.

Regarding liveability, those courtyards would probably be nicer without the open parking garage. There might be more dogs but there would be fewer horns etc.

The parkng garage doesn't need to be exposed. Here are doughnut style complexes where the central courtyard is on the roof of the garage in suburban Miami. Basically the garage is the central botton 2 or 3 floors and the central courtyard is on top of that (obviously with some kind of venting system for the garage). The buildings in total are 7 or 8 floors tall.
https://www.google.com/maps/place/81...!4d-80.3098151

Here they are from the ground level. Not ideal but better than the old garden apartments they replaced.
https://www.google.com/maps/place/81...098151!6m1!1e1

[C.]

Originally Posted by mhays

Texas doughnuts are more efficient on large blocks than small ones, but it's still inefficient and not very liveable compared to below-grade.

Imagine if the parking was housing. It would be skinnier than the current 120' or so width because apartments aren't 55' deep, but imagine that alignment. They could easily add 100-150 units.

Regarding liveability, those courtyards would probably be nicer without the open parking garage. There might be more dogs but there would be fewer horns etc.

Below-grade is of course ideal but it's cost prohibitive in many places. Underlying soil conditions play a big role. There is also recent discussions regarding below grade uses and flood insurance concerns.

If below grade parking is not an option, what other alternatives are there to meet zoning regulations which call for offstreet minimum parking standards? A covered doughnut like the one dave8721 posts is the best option in my opinion. You're right it works best on bigger blocks. For smaller sites, it's almost always going to have to be an ugly parking lot in front. The city's zoning, and NIMBYism when trying to change that zoning, is a monumental task when trying to reduce the number of required offstreet parking so many developer's have to find a way to work with it.

[Minato Ku]

Don't you like underground car park in the United States?
That's how it is done in France. Pretty much every modern residential, office or retail buildings in dense areas have underground garage in France.
https://www.google.fr/maps/@48.81765...3312!8i6656?hl

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by Minato Ku

Don't you like underground car park in the United States?
That's how it is done in France.

Surface parking in the U.S. is much cheaper, so in the vast majority of cities, surface garages get built.

In the typical U.S. city, if you see a new condo tower, the base will basically be a giant garage. You can have 40 floor towers where the first 10 floors are parking.

[Via Chicago]

Originally Posted by Minato Ku

Don't you like underground car park in the United States?
That's how it is done in France. Pretty much every modern residential, office or retail buildings in dense areas have underground garage in France.
https://www.google.fr/maps/@48.81765...3312!8i6656?hl

if only. much more expensive to do it that way. most cities also have archaic/absurd parking ratio requirements for new buildings.

we usually get something along the lines of:

[mhays]

Originally Posted by dave8721

The parkng garage doesn't need to be exposed. Here are doughnut style complexes where the central courtyard is on the roof of the garage in suburban Miami. Basically the garage is the central botton 2 or 3 floors and the central courtyard is on top of that (obviously with some kind of venting system for the garage). The buildings in total are 7 or 8 floors tall.
https://www.google.com/maps/place/81...!4d-80.3098151

Here they are from the ground level. Not ideal but better than the old garden apartments they replaced.

You still get less density, because the apartments can only be on the perimeter vs. also in the courtyards.

[mhays]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Surface parking in the U.S. is much cheaper, so in the vast majority of cities, surface garages get built.

In the typical U.S. city, if you see a new condo tower, the base will basically be a giant garage. You can have 40 floor towers where the first 10 floors are parking.

In some cities, not in others. NY, SF, Seattle, Portland, and others don't do much above-grade parking.

[Reverberation]

Originally Posted by mhays

A lot of cities have zoning that makes urbanity possible including good retail streets. It's not necessarily easy but a ton of it gets built. Much of it is 60' or 200' of frontage at a time.

The example in the photo doesn't look very good. Unpleasant.

I think you are talking about within already developed areas. I'm talking about in newly minted suburbs.

[TarHeelJ]

Originally Posted by CIA

Below-grade is of course ideal but it's cost prohibitive in many places. Underlying soil conditions play a big role. There is also recent discussions regarding below grade uses and flood insurance concerns.

If below grade parking is not an option, what other alternatives are there to meet zoning regulations which call for offstreet minimum parking standards? A covered doughnut like the one dave8721 posts is the best option in my opinion. You're right it works best on bigger blocks. For smaller sites, it's almost always going to have to be an ugly parking lot in front. The city's zoning, and NIMBYism when trying to change that zoning, is a monumental task when trying to reduce the number of required offstreet parking so many developer's have to find a way to work with it.

Something that has been popular with a particularly hated developer in Atlanta is a large retailer (usually a grocery store) with a giant one or two level parking lot wrapped in shallow retail buildings and residential along the perimeter. He has built these in a couple of really popular, up-and-coming walkable areas and made a bad name for himself in the process. It ends up being okay from the street - not as bad a giant parking lot in front - but really offensive from the air. It's just a new take on strip malls if you ask me: