As construction cranes dot the sky at Tysons Corner and Montgomery County redraws master plans for its more congested communities, planner Neal Payton just has one question — who do they think they are? New town centers’ success hinges on creating an identity, said Payton, principal at the firm Torti Gallas and Partners in Los Angeles.
“What about your place is particularly compelling; why would someone come a second time?” he asked planners and developers at the Makeover Montgomery conference last week in Silver Spring.
“What’s iconic and supportable?” he said. “Why live there? Why work there? You need to be able to answer these questions as a town and if you can’t answer them, you’re in trouble.”
Part of creating that identity is creating visibility, experts said. Uri Avin, a regional growth expert at planning firm Parsons Brinckerhoff, said Columbia’s town center provides a “what not to do” lesson for the planners of today.
“I think it fails because it’s so hard to find off [Interstate] 95,” he said. “Sure, 100,000 people in the area is enough to support the retail, but there’s not enough visibility.”
And as planners contemplate hacking Tysons’ massive blocks into smaller, more pedestrian-friendly ones with Metro building three stations in the area, experts note creating a sense of place doesn’t have to be a massive undertaking. In fact, the smaller, the better.
Third Street in Santa Monica – home to the third-highest retail rents in the country – and University Avenue in Palo Alto, Calif., are widely considered two of the nation’s most successful main streets, and they are less than a mile long, Payton said.
Avin said his studies show the most successful town centers require people to walk only 600 to 1,000 feet during their stay. And as Tysons becomes a walkable community and Montgomery builds urban centers around Metro stations, mixing residential and office space with retail is key to maximizing space and sense of place, he said.
A mistake made by many jurisdictions, he said, is keeping retail separate from residences thereby forcing most residents to drive.
“I’ve seen lots of empty town centers surrounded by foreclosed homes and vacant lots,” Avin said.
