90 second BEAT
putting the urb in suburb
Feb 2015 Beat
Where’s an urbanista to find exciting social landscapes in suburbia?
Increasingly, many ways of meeting much of the criteria that make a suburban experience “urban” can be found, of all places, in the repackaging of the shopping mall... into a town center.
With a nod to the recently deceased Jon Jerde, celebrated architect of open-air malls, camelpolitan was curious about the state of this type of commercial core. On a recent trip to Scottsdale, we asked the hotel concierge to recommend notable shopping meccas in the Sonoran Desert.
“What about downtown Phoenix?” we inquired. “Lots of revitalization there. Light rail expansion. Snappy new streetscapes. Cool restaurants.”
She shook her head. “Nothing in downtown Phoenix. Most shopping is in old fashioned malls just outside.”
This was validated by a lifelong Phoenician and former City of Phoenix employee in the mayor's office whom we later met at a party. He noted renewal projects like Reinvent Phoenix, which invests in walkable communities, Phoenix Renews, which transforms vacant lots into pop-up spaces, and Roosevelt Row, the arts and culture neighborhood on the cusp of becoming a destination like Old Oakland and Arts District LA. But no shopping in Phoenix’s mix of uses yet.
The concierge named several options in Scottsdale. We took the newest one, in search of a modern take on outdoor shopping centers.
Pleased to find Scottsdale Quarter more human scale than other mass hangouts like Irvine Spectrum Center, yet less low scale than neotraditional developments like Mashpee Commons. On 28 acres, 1.2 million square feet, the scale and proportion of SQ feel right. Shops and restaurants are an eclectic mix of name brand and new brand, with strong focus on health, fitness, and freshness. The look and quality are more boutique and compact than the rambling, towering lifestyle centers of last century. With the exception of driveways, plants, and a playhill, the vertical and horizontal lines are clean, simple, and linear rather than organic and curvilinear. Handsome rather than pretty.
The presence of cars is barely felt, owing to the design of convenient, free garages tucked midblock at the anchors of the quarter. The narrow roads and short blocks that render pedestrians more predominant and prominent in stature than cars make this microcosm feel, dare we say, “urban,” an overused expression for almost anything sexy these days.
The best part is that the centerpiece of this project, aptly named The Quad, is a lush, thriving outdoor lounge with the basic amenities we want in our public relaxation: interactive water feature, artificial turf, trees, seating variety, and a stage setting.
The Quad is small enough to cozy people together yet big enough for anonymity. Like the home kitchen, this central plaza is the heart and soul of the community, the place where everyone gravitates.
Office and residential towers are in development on the near horizon. The idea of living in a mall sounds scary to snobs. But SQ feels like more than just another mall if you let it. It has potential to be the seed for a successful model of mid density suburban living, with a vibrant core that brings people together. An experiment worth watching.
Love it or hate it for what it is before it gets labeled and reduced to an ism. It’s not textbook, thankfully, nor perfect, but it's a good start. Suburbs will never look like the central cities that inspire highbrow urbanists, but they have inspiration all their own: opportunity for reinvention. As these new centers are bold attempts by suburbs to create an urb and find ways of retrofitting sprawl, could “suburban” become the new sexy?
WP Glimcher, developer
Nelsen Partners, architects
more BEATS about the fashion of urbs
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