New Horizon Mall - Calgary

[Kerry]

This place sounds like a retail condo flea market. What's so revolutionary about the concept? Plus at 50 to 75 stores, wouldn't it be smaller than the present day Landing building?

It is a bit more upscale than a flea market.  I'm not going to entertain the Landing comparison become the Landing has so many basic design flaws it was never going to be successful.

[thelakelander]

What are the design flaws that can't be fixed? It's already more successful than this Calgary example. Also, you can do several things with that structurally sound building. It's the same general structure as Bayside in Miami, Harborplace in Baltimore and Waterside in Norfolk. All of them are vibrant by any standard we'd use locally. The remake of Watetside is about as impressive as one can come up with for the reuse of a space that supposedly had too many "design flaws" to overcome.

[MusicMan]

The Landing needs a new owner, someone who specializes in this sort of property. The current owner has never quite been able to make it work.

Oh, and a Starbucks. I went to The Landing almost every day I worked downtown when it had a Starbucks. It got me in the door.
I no longer go.

Quick poll: If the upstairs food court at The Landing featured Jacksonville home grown products and stores (i.e. Sweet Theory, French Pantry, Southern Roots, Bold Bean, Nacho Taco, Ajeen and Juice, etc...) would THAT draw folks in?

[thelakelander]

MusicMan, basically you're saying the structure is fine? You're also saying if the tenant mix was modified to something that aligns with current retailing trends, there would be more people visiting the structure?

If this is the case, seems the public would be better off not sinking millions into a complete demo.

[Steve]

I do agree that the structure and the tenant mix in the particular locations wasn't well thought out. Easily fixable though.

The ironic thing was that I do believe Sleiman's original landing plan from 2004-2005ish would have worked. The guy WAS capable of coming up with a plan.

Now, that was when money was free and every bank was just printing cash from the branch it seemed.

[thelakelander]

Sleiman is more capable than Khan or anyone at COJ in doing anything retail, IMO based on their previous professional experience. However, the most significant obstacle regarding the Landing has been the political battle/bad relationships between him and the city.  If Brown knew what he was doing, by now the Landing would likely look a lot different than it does today.

[Tacachale]

Sleiman is more capable than Khan or anyone at COJ in doing anything retail, IMO based on their previous professional experience. However, the most significant obstacle regarding the Landing has been the political battle/bad relationships between him and the city.  If Brown knew what he was doing, by now the Landing would likely look a lot different than it does today.

Not a good sign when the only administration Sleiman got along with was the one that was incapable of pulling off what he wanted.

[Steve]

Sleiman is more capable than Khan or anyone at COJ in doing anything retail, IMO based on their previous professional experience. However, the most significant obstacle regarding the Landing has been the political battle/bad relationships between him and the city.  If Brown knew what he was doing, by now the Landing would likely look a lot different than it does today.

Not a good sign when the only administration Sleiman got along with was the one that was incapable of pulling off what he wanted.

Can't argue that. For a guy that likes to donate and be chummy with political candidates, it sure hasn't worked well here.

- He jumped in with Mike Hogan who basically campaigned that, "we're not spending a dime on anything whatsoever." Hogan Lost
- He jumped in with Alvin Brown a year in and tried to get chummy with him while Brown couldn't balance the City's checkbook to save his life. He lost.
- Unless someone comes out of the woodwork in the next 60 days, Curry is GOING to win re-election. If he plans on holding on to this building and wants to re-do it, then Sleiman and Curry are going to have to figure this out. Or, this political football is going to be punted more times then the Jags do.

[Kerry]

So real quick - here are the basic design flaws.

The building is oriented the wrong direction. The U should have opened to the street, not the river.  Better yet, it should have never been U shapped because it destroys sightlines

The stores should have had entrances to the exterior of the building, not an interior hallway.

It was built at least 15' to close to the river.  There is practically no room to walk along the river.

With minimal downtown population it should have been built with a parking garage from day 1.  It should have never opened without it.

We know so much more about walkable urbanism today and if the Landing was being built today there is no way it would ever be built like it is.

[Steve]

The building is oriented the wrong direction. The U should have opened to the street, not the river.  Better yet, it should have never been U shapped because it destroys sightlines

Fixable. The building has stores on both sides of the U. It isn't the design's fault that they poorly used the outside of the U.

The stores should have had entrances to the exterior of the building, not an interior hallway.

It was done as a Mall - not uncommon in 1987. Also Fixable

It was built at least 15' to close to the river.  There is practically no room to walk along the river.

This I completely agree with. I wouldn't tear it down over it, but I agree.

With minimal downtown population it should have been built with a parking garage from day 1.  It should have never opened without it.

This isn't a design flaw of the building, but considering the city was supposed to do this since the 1980's I agree it should have happened.

We know so much more about walkable urbanism today and if the Landing was being built today there is no way it would ever be built like it is.

No arguments, but also not hard to address many of these things. It also isn't the key issue with the Landing. Take the Wells Fargo Center across the street. The double sidewalk nonsense is crazy. I don't see anyone trying to tear it down though to fix that.

[thelakelander]

So real quick - here are the basic design flaws.

The building is oriented the wrong direction. The U should have opened to the street, not the river.  Better yet, it should have never been U shapped because it destroys sightlines

Just about every festival marketplace was designed this way. So are the majority of our class A office towers. The fix is easy. Just make a few of the walls transparent. As a part of the recent revamp of Miami's Bayside, they literally removed walls and made a portion of the complex open air.



It would be very easy to do something similar with the Market Hall area that opens up to Independent Drive.

The stores should have had entrances to the exterior of the building, not an interior hallway.

This could be a pretty awesome space with storefronts and reuse/programming of the underutilized courtyard area shown here/

Another easy cheap fix. Keep the structure, eliminate the interior mall and just add storefront entrances (this happens with older failed enclosed malls all across the state and country). IMO, we should do the same to the Wells Fargo Center across the street as well (Charlotte has been good at doing this with its office tower lobbies on Tryon Street.

It was built at least 15' to close to the river.  There is practically no room to walk along the river.

Another easy cheap fix. Lose/modify the outdoor fenced seating that eats into the riverwalk space (and move the stairwell near the Main Street Bridge) and you'll have ample room for the riverwalk to walk or bike. There's at least 15 to 20 feet to play with there, which is just as wide or wider than any stretch of the riverwalk thorough Brooklyn. I believe all those storefront openings are already garage roll-up doors. Open them and you'd have a similar condition that Hawkers has in Five Points...except with a riverwalk that's double the size in width.

With minimal downtown population it should have been built with a parking garage from day 1.  It should have never opened without it.

No argument here. COJ failed on this, since the parking garage was promised to lure Rouse here in the first place. With that said, overcoming parking is an easy fix. We aren't exactly Manhattan when it comes to density. There's opportunity to maximize use at existing lots and garages and dedicated parking needs can be reduced with a change in the type of tenant mix.

We know so much more about walkable urbanism today and if the Landing was being built today there is no way it would ever be built like it is.

Do we? If we did, we wouldn't be proposing to move this type of complex to a stadium parking lot that will be adjacent to a six lane at-grade highway between two freeway ramps.....over a mile from the walkable core. I believe we knew a lot more about walkable urbanism a century ago than we do today or in the 1980s when the Landing was built. With that said, flip the storefronts facing Independent Drive and that same structure is just as walkable as anything we can design today and for a significant fraction of the cost that a complete demo and rebuild will take.

[thelakelander]

Btw, here's a picture of the Harborplace revamp from a few years ago. Some vacant retail space become consolidated into a museum. Other spaces had outdoor storefronts and seating added to better integrate with the pedestrian experience.



Here's a 2015 rendering for the proposed revamp of the other building.



"The plan presented Thursday by Seattle-based architects from MG2 proposes eliminating the interior mall in the Pratt Street pavilion and allowing the public to enter stores from both sides of the building."

https://www.baltimoresun.com/business/bs-bz-harborplace-20151001-story.html

[Kerry]

Let me add - even if it was revamped to have the retail facing the street, the building is way too far from the street.  There is simply too much wasted space between the structure and the sidewalk.

[Steve]

Let me add - even if it was revamped to have the retail facing the street, the building is way too far from the street.  There is simply too much wasted space between the structure and the sidewalk.

Not sure I think that's a development challenge, as you can do a ton with that space. If I were building that structure yes I'd move it back from the river. These sound like excuses versus actual problems with the building.

[Kerry]

The building is sitting in the wrong spot on the land.  It is too close to the river and too far from the street.  How can you fix it without tearing it down, and is the fix more expensive than just starting over?  If you don't fix the root cause to any problem then you are just treating the symptoms.

And they would still need to do something about the terminating vistas on Laura Street and Water Street.  They are abysmal.  Almost as if the developer really had no concept or idea about what they were doing.

http://www.placemakers.com/2012/04/12/get-to-know-the-awkwardly-named-terminated-vista/