Today’s mixed-use development hearkens back to the traditional compact urban community in which individuals and families can live, work, learn, shop, play, and pray, and where travel on mass transit and/or on foot are practical and attractive alternatives to spending hours in a car.

In order to be successful, then, the mixed-use development must be designed for a positive pedestrian experience, especially in the retail sector. Design for a positive pedestrian experience, one that is vibrant, yet comfortable, originates with effective urban land planning and truly arrives in the form of a cohesive streetscape.

Studies have shown that most people are willing to walk a maximum of 10 to 12 minutes from place to place. This benchmark governs planning for train and bus stops in transit-oriented developments; it applies to the calculation of maximum distances between retail establishments at either end of a retail district and between structured parking and the center of the retail district. This leads, quite naturally, to the development of a cruciform urban land plan rather than a seemingly endless main street.

The Public Square
That said, there is another effective alternative, which acknowledges that a sizable public park — 20,000-40,000 square feet — is a vital component of a positive pedestrian experience in a mixed-use community. In many communities, this public green space forms the civic square at the heart of the community. This public space can be bordered with retail.

What about the old saw, “Retail is only successful when shops face each other across the street?” In the opinion of some planners, that is only a half-correct truism. Certainly, it is not a bad guideline to develop a streetscape of retail shops along opposite sides of a main street. However, retail also succeeds when arrayed around a public square. The key to its success is to keep people moving through the square by effective organization of the origination and destination points, for example by placing the main public parking structure behind the public square. The public square itself must also be designed as a lively place where people can sit with their coffee or take-out lunch and watch their neighbors carrying shopping bags, walking dogs, and jogging.

Well-situated structured parking is also an important part of the convenience factor, reducing or eliminating the hunt for an on-street parking space and keeping the walking distance to a manageable 10 to 12 minutes. However, many people resist using a parking structure because they find many of these structures to be dark and foreboding. It doesn’t have to be so. If the interior is well-lighted and painted white or light beige with colored panels to indicate the parking level, people generally will feel comfortable using it. The alternative, a large surface parking lot, is a re-creation of the suburban shopping mall experience, which is the antithesis of a pedestrian-friendly, mixed-use development.

Pedestrians and Vehicles Live Together
Another key to designing a pedestrian-friendly mixed-use development is the provision of alternate routes for through-traffic. Ideally, the community should be planned in such a way that the main retail streets are not used by residents or visitors to access major destination points or to travel across town by providing parallel roads a block or two away from the main street.

This brings us to the question, “Do pedestrians and vehicles mix?” A number of years ago, there was a movement to take cars off the main retail street and create a “pedestrian mall,” in theory, to make pedestrians feel safer and more comfortable. Yet the unintended result can be a dull, uninteresting pedestrian experience.

When cars are on the street, pedestrian movement, seating and other amenities are compacted within a 17- to 19-foot-wide sidewalk between the storefronts and the curb. That’s four to six feet of space for window-shopping and outdoor dining, eight feet for the main flow of pedestrians, and another five feet for landscaping. This makes the entire streetscape feel like a vibrant, bustling place — creating an environment that feels like an exciting place to be.

At the same time, pedestrians must feel that they are separated and safe from moving vehicles. Parallel, on-street parking is the solution. It not only creates a physical buffer between pedestrians and vehicular traffic, it also tends to cause drivers to slow down, especially if streets are relatively narrow at two, 10-foot traffic lanes and two, seven-foot-wide parallel parking lanes. Moreover, on-street teaser parking contributes to the perception of convenience. In addition, at pedestrian crosswalks, strategies such as a slightly raised road surface with brick, cobblestone or concrete pavers helps to bring traffic to a crawl.

Looking Up
That brings one to the vertical street-front. One school of thought is that retailers should have free rein in the design of their store fronts; that is, take the building structure “off the ground” in terms of its visibility, creating a virtually unbroken expanse of glass at street level. However, this can easily result in visual chaos.

Generally, a more cohesive streetscape is created when the structure imposes some discipline at ground level. An effective way to achieve this is to bring the building structure down to the sidewalk, with framed openings of 15 to 30 feet wide and 10 to 12 feet in height creating an area where individual retailers van insert storefront designs that express their brands, creating an interesting and varied experience for pedestrians.

It is also important to vary the articulation of the building facades from ground level to 20 feet, which is about the limit of pedestrians’ vertical gaze, to maintain visual interest and create recesses for outdoor cafes and pocket parks. At the same time, planners and designers must be careful to avoid “burying” retailers in these recesses. There is a fine line between a hard, rigid street front and one that reduces retailers’ visibility from the street.

Ultimately, pedestrian-friendly, mixed-use design keeps people’s feet on the ground because it creates a vibrant environment that invites residents and visitors to experience all that the community has to offer. SLDT