Charlottesville shows potential of Mill Street block
When I first heard about plans to turn the block of Mill Street between Main and Short into a pedestrian mall, I thought it was a good idea.
After seeing how a larger pedestrian mall has transformed downtown Charlottesville, Va., I think it could be a truly great idea.
I went to Charlottesville recently with a group of friends for a bicycle tour. On Friday and Saturday evenings, we went to the Downtown Mall for dinner.
The place was hopping. Hundreds of people were eating, shopping, listening to live music and visiting with each other.
The eight-block mall on what used to be Main Street has 30 restaurants and 120 shops in a mix of old and new buildings. At one end is a children’s museum and an amphitheater that hosts big-name performers and has free weekly concerts by local bands.
The mall has become a big tourist draw and economic engine. More importantly, it has become Charlottesville’s community front porch. Most of the people we saw there seemed to be locals. Some said they come every week between May and October.
It’s a good example of the urban planner’s maxim that if you build a city to appeal to its residents, others will want to be there, too.
The Downtown Mall was hardly an overnight success. More like a 35-year slog.
As with many American cities in the early 1970s, suburban growth had turned Charlottesville’s downtown business district into a ghost town.
So, in 1975, Charlottesville got on the bandwagon of cities building pedestrian malls. Many of those malls failed, such as Louisville’s River City Mall, although it would later be reborn as the popular Fourth Street Live.
But Charlottesville stuck with it, trying new ideas and making periodic improvements over the years. The city recently finished a $7.5 million renovation, which included new pavers and free wireless Internet service.
As with most successful developments, good design is key. The former street is 60 feet wide, with pedestrian corridors on each side and cafes in the center, shaded by giant willow oak trees. The trees make the mall pretty as well as comfortable in the summer heat.
The trees’ rapid growth was a pleasant surprise, said Rhetta Bearden, a guide for the local historical society who gave several of us a great downtown walking tour.
Planners knew that Main Street had once been part of “Three Notch’d Road,” a pioneer path from the James River to the Shenandoah Valley that got its name from hatchet marks on trees to blaze the trail. But they didn’t know there were springs beneath it that would make the willow oaks flourish, Bearden said.
If you compare Charlottesville and Lexington, you find that Lexington is a bigger city, with a bigger metro area. It also has more college students.
So what would it take to make downtown Lexington more of a people magnet?
There certainly seems to be public interest. Just look at the growing crowds for Thursday Night Live, Gallery Hop and big events such as this weekend’s Independence Day festivities.
One pedestrian block of Mill Street doesn’t compare with Charlottesville’s eight-block mall, but it fits nicely into a bigger picture. The block is strategically located between Cheapside and Victorian Square, both of which are having success recently with restaurants and bars.
With a little money and imagination, Mill Street could become the heart of a downtown entertainment district that would pull University of Kentucky students a few blocks north, Transylvania University students a few blocks south and a variety of Central Kentuckians in from the suburbs.
My guess is that a new skyscraper wouldn’t do nearly as much to revitalize downtown Lexington as a bigger community front porch.
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June 30th, 2009 at 9:54 pm
One of Lexington’s biggest problems that it still needs to learn to overcome is that it has never tried very hard at all to build a city for its citizens, especially in downtown where it really counts. For decades, the political will and influence and big money players have drilled it into everyone’s head that attracting more and more tourism into downtown is where the money is, but they’ve hedged their bets on the same old things… and those are now proving to be not such good bets. We can’t even seem to rely on the stand-by of the horse industry anymore, and I think everyone is fooling themselves into thinking that 2010 is going to turn all of that around… Unfortunately I think those people with such high expectations are going to be sorely disappointed. Perhaps the Centerpointe debacle will finally be the nail in the coffin of the old stale Lexington mindset. The positive thing I see out of all of this, is Lexington is showing glimpses of progress despite the mess… and things seem to be moving along by the sheer will of those business owners who are thinking forward. Perhaps downtown will come out of this just fine on its own without the help of a needless skyscraper.
July 1st, 2009 at 8:08 am
Tom
It strikes me that your article implies that over the 35 years of Charlottesville trying to get their pedestrian mall right, that money and new ideas were what finally made it a success.
It might be worth considering that nothing more than consumer preferences in the 60’s and 70’s are what kept it from succeeding, and that a shift in those preferences is what is leading to it’s popularity today. In other words, their most recent $8mil was not a catalyst, but a reaction to demand and a market that now exists that once did not. Clearly their leaders made a good call in supporting that market, but the same is occurring in Lexington. The events here you listed are the reason we know to pump more money into more projects. Tastes and preferences are swinging back in the favor of downtowns.
The point I’m trying to make is that cheap land and the convenience of driving from the suburbs are primary reasons downtowns failed. Both of those factors have changed in many cities and once again there is a choice to be made about where to live and things to do.
It shouldn’t be the default logic that the downtown flight of previous decades is a result (solely) of poor planning and lack of funding. Markets change and cities have tried and failed (urban renewal for example) numerous times to prevent those shifts. All leaders can do is be ready to act quickly and supportively when things swing back their way.
I don’t want to sound defeatist, and that doesn’t excuse bad development, because no matter where development occurs it should be compatible with it’s surroundings, but in the case of urbansuburban shifts, the market is too powerful for a local government to dissuade through policy changes alone.
All that said, the Mill St. conversion is a good start at a great time and hopefully only the first small step in a much larger pool of projects in the coming years.
July 1st, 2009 at 9:30 am
Many European cities have these already. Just about every city in Germany has some type of pedestrian-only zone with shops, places to eat, and things like that. These streets tend to be the most popular places in town, with attractions for both young and old alike. In large cities, these pedestrian zones can stretch over several kilometers.
They exist in the States, but aren’t always situated downtown (see Salt Lake City’s Gateway area http://www.shopthegateway.com/ ).
To be honest, I think it is a great idea, and making the project bigger than just one street is probably necessary. The problem with Mill St here is that it really isn’t wide enough to allow for large groups of people, and it would also be difficult to have shopping areas here, as the buildings are already installed to face Main and Short Streets. Also, it will be hard to spread crowds out over both Mill Street and Cheapside, since they’ll all have to walk along Main and Short. Realistically, the pedestrian zones need to be continuous, not spread out around downtown. At night, when the crowds are largest, is Main Street going to be blocked off for that block to allow people standing room, etc.? Is the intention to bring concerts (Fourth Street-esque) or to just have a downtown space for the entire family? The space here is limited, and I think that causes a problem.
The biggest problem of all is transportation. Sure, families can drive in from the suburbs to enjoy an evening in downtown, but as Chris said before me, that isn’t going to happen often. Truthfully, this space would be used primarily for the college population in Lexington, who make up the vast majority of those people within walking distance. In Salt Lake City, the light rail (which are free to use within downtown, by the way) have two stops along the Gateway area to provide transportation. While Charlottesville, VA doesn’t have light rail, it is also nearly 2.5x smaller than Lexington.
I think it is an idea that is on the right track, but isn’t very well put together. Mill Street in this section is home to several attorneys who probably won’t want to move their offices to make way for other downtown business.
It seems evident that this will basically be an overflow place for people going to Cheapside at night. So what purpose is there in closing this off during the day? There aren’t going to be any new shops coming in here… there isn’t any room for them. It will be another pedestrian zone that goes predominantly unused for its purpose during the say, just as Cheapside is now.
Lastly, this doesn’t leave much room to grow (the same problem with Cheapside). To the north are a couple of old churches and houses that are surely on register, and to the south we find the 5/3 building. If Lexington is going to start turning downtown into pedestrian zones, I’d prefer they do it along streets that allow future growth, such as going east-west along Main Street from Broadway to Upper. This would require making Vine St two-way, though this is already in discussion. Lexington traffic downtown is already miserable, so I doubt this would add too many problems.
An aside… what about the Centrepointe plaza? Could that work? Expand Phoenix Park, and have a pedestrian zone on Limestone from West Main through Church Street would be feasible if an alternative for traffic northbound from Nicholasville Rd could be found.
This was longer than I expected it to be. At any rate, I am glad Lexington is looking at this possibility.
July 1st, 2009 at 10:58 am
Chris and Garrett make some valid points about the need for the district to be larger than currently envisioned. I have talked about that in my most recent blog piece. The natural progression of this phenomenon is clearly to the north side of Main St. and any efforts to drive it south will cut off its evolving nature. The City has tried to influence these things before, with less than spectacular results.
There has been much made of the transportation and parking problems in relation to this area, but that is probably just the suburban mind set trying to resist the change to a more walkable society. When gas(or other fuels) get so expensive as to preclude private vehicle ownership, there will be more mass transportation options as well as biking and walking.
These are the things that need to be discussed further.
July 1st, 2009 at 11:04 am
Let’s see… there’s Goodfellas, Rosebud, Silk’s Lounge, Cheapside, Metropol, Bluegrass Tavern, Courtyard Deli, Redmon’s, soon-to-be Dudley’s… then across the street over by the Webb mess is Harvey’s, Hugo’s and McCarthy’s. Definitely way more than just the Cheapside Bar. Granted, there is no retail to speak of, but I think there are plenty of business that can support this area (and can even expand their business) if it becomes a pedestrian mall.
July 1st, 2009 at 6:06 pm
Would having that block of Mill made into a drivable mall work? Cars could use it during the day, and on nights and weekends, it could be a plaza. (The paving on West Short between the “new” courthouses comes to mind.) I think a plaza that is not huge so that traffic is not so remote from pedestrians is important. Looking at the Charlottesville pictures shows the inviting scales of the buildings in the background - like that part of Lexington has. Also, there is pleasant planting and the dining areas are delineated from the pedestrian areas. (Natasha’s does this well, and lucie’s and most other outdoor eating places need to do it as well.) Probably we will end up with several small plazas between Main and Short (Mill, Cheapside, Esplanade, etc.) because of the constraints of what already exists. But if done well visually with interesting planting, places, and surrounding architecture, they would seem to be inviting. Also, where are their herbies?? Eating outside next to a herbie makes for an interesting dining experience. Sometimes I think Lexington uses herbies as a decorating accessory.
July 1st, 2009 at 11:05 pm
Tom — The Charlottesville example is a good one to emulate, though I doubt Mill Street has much potential due to it’s limited building resources. One point I’d like to make is that Lexington seems to flit from one good idea to another but rarely gets around to doing much building. In 2002 we had the College Town Plan which recommended improving Limestone from UK to Transy as a pedestrian corridor. A great idea which has been delayed again and again (and will likely be delayed again this week by the Urban County Council). Meanwhile we have seen proposals for a linear park on Vine Street, revitalization of the Third Street corridor, the Manchester Street Distillery District, reconstruction of Esplanade, construction of a market pavilion on Cheapside, and now the Mill Street pedestrian mall. If there was money for all of these it would be fantastic, but there isn’t. There’s nothing wrong with proposing good ideas, but this city needs to decide on a project, get the funding in place, and get something built.