The perfect fortune

Seattle

Seattle is great. The weather has been phenomenal. Very gusty but by far the coolest its been my entire trip.

I ended up doing a ton of walking today. For a few reasons, 1 being that I was tracking  the Alaskan Way Viaduct and looking at the spatial implications on the waterfront, and the other is that fact that the transit here is not so good. Nonetheless I had an interesting day and a good walk.

I guess the first thing I have to say is that topography plays a huge role in this city. Starting at Pike Place market I think its interesting that its not on the waterfront. My impression of Pike Place's location was that it was waterfront and directly related to the fishing industry. It is instead on the hillside interfaced towards the CBD, instead of interfaced a good 40 or 50 ft down to the waterfront.

I guess thats the interesting thing about Seattle is the amount of Topography in the CBD. It is quite substantial, to the degree that San Francisco is but with the hills pulled farther towards the water. This means a few things. One is that there is no mediation towards the water. Essentially there is a one block zone before you hit the waterfront. The other perception that I had about Seattle was that the Alaskan Viaduct was at the level of the city, when it in fact is about level with the bottom of the city. The main issue is the road noise.

So, bottom line is that a successful project here has to mediate between topographic change as well as (in the case of waterfronts) the rail lines and sometimes the elevated road lines that exist. Thats where I think the Olympic Sculpture park has been wildly successful. It is able to take care of all the issues of Road, River, And Rail in an elegant way that mediates all levels and scales.

I could talk more about my experiences on my waterfront walk but all I will say for now is how unfortunate it is in creating a tourist safe haven. For me the waterfront has to be populated and vibrant, and that is what will drive tourists, nor this dreary fisherman's wharf ideal.

The most interesting part of my day was the visit to the South Union Lake Project. This project is interesting because of its time scaled nature, multi-product, and transit components. Its got the movers and the corporations investing in it, but I wonder how much it will slow down due to the recession.

More tomorrow, as I finish out Seattle and return to Chicago for a rest day.

Transit thinking out 20 years.

I think I should rename my trip:

The Whole Foods tour of America: how chains with deep pockets fund the
popularization and proliferation of walkable urbanism.

Portland Day 2

Today I met with a developer and had a productive discussion regarding Portland’s development scene. The interesting thing about Portland is that urban sprawl is curtailed by the Portland development act, Which periodically releases more land to ensure that there is a 20 year supply of housing. But what this means is that development is slow and thoughtful. In addition it is always more dense. This is because it is more expensive, and as a result parceled out into smaller pieces. What this means is that development isn’t this massive sprawling machine, but rather a regulated expansion.

Part of the process of releasing land in the 20 year supply is the fact that redevelopment plots are taken into the process. The city therefore encourages density and adaptive reuse. It also means that there was never a full fledged plight to the suburbs, because the supply couldn’t handle it.

The other thing that it means is that parking lots are economically sized, and stores are shifted towards the streets. It must also be related to the zoning and planning requirements for how many spaces are needed for specific purposes. This must make parking a nightmare during peak times, but the spatial quality it creates is far superior.

Talking with one of the developers of the South Waterfront provided insight into some of the successes and failures of the project. The thing that is clear about the project is with the proposed density and the changing market conditions, the project has had its hiccups. A less dense development might have propelled the development and been a more sustainable approach, but as it stands the project is ok, and the newest product being built is 5-6 story apartments.

The other tipping point of the project was the ability to secure the transit coming to the site at the same time as the opening of the first buildings. This is critical because of the sites difficult accessibility by car and selling point of public transit.

The other thing we discussed was the necessity to appreciate and understand the industry that is still on site. The Neighborhood has shifted its focus to celebrating it with a boat launchings of the shipbuilder.  For the developer it was a necessary relationship.  Its also not the worst industry to have to work with, as its non polluting and smell less. The only potential hazard is the light of the welding torches.

Another tough decision that must be made is to bury parking garages, at a massive cost. The most successful projects on any scale are the ones that provide connectivity to their surroundings. Having surface lots or parking garages isolate developments and divide cities, and at a certain point the land is simply too valuable to under develop.

I visited one development today that’s worth talking about. This theme of transit oriented development is one that gets tossed around quite a bit. In Portland there is a surburban Greenfield mall that I visited which is adjacent to the airport. Its fairly generic but the remarkable thing about it is the fact that it has polarized toward the light rail line that is at the edge of the site. All of the smaller outlier buildings have formed into an avenue like side that is directly adjacent to the avenue with the light rail station, there is then a medium sized parking lot and then the large big box retailers sit in a row on the far side. Its not groundbreaking, but it evokes a certain amount of urbanism in a Greenfield.

Tonight I’m on the train to Seattle. Looking forward to the final leg in the first half of my trip and getting a chance to recap and add imagery. 

Portland

So far I've really enjoyed my time here in Portland. Its a unique city with a commitment to sustainability and the first city that I've seen doing a great job of fostering civic spaces and really working to make a city and sustainability a reality.

One of the things that I appreciate in a mid size city that Denver and Omaha lacked was a good transit system. Here in Portland a combination of light rail and streetcars make it relatively easy to get around, but the thing that is really great about transit here is the free ride zone. This zone within the city center makes it incredibly easy to get around and free. This fosters a park and ride relationship with the transit system that many cities lack when you look at the cost of getting to multiple locations. The additional incentive is in building the light rail system they removed vehicle traffic on many streets in downtown, adjusting them to instead be light rail only. A streetcar system also links a number of projects I looked at today. It goes across the far end of downtown, ringing the road.

The other sustainable planning initiative is the encouraging of bicycle transportation. Cognoscente of Copenhagen, the street network has been shifted to add bike lanes and on a few streets, even a full lane for bikes, again reducing the capacity for vehicles in order to encourage transport usage. It's been really easy to get around so far, making this a fun city to explore.

As far as the spatial experience of the city, seeing the waterfront on a weekend has shown the tremendous potential of outdoor spaces. For one, the Saturday market here in Portland is really great. This art, craft, and food market is open every weekend and optimizes the use of a number of city spaces, including a purpose built pavilion and the underpass of a highway.  There was a great vibrancy to this show, with a number of really unique and interesting things. The other public event that was going on was the Oregon Brewers Festival, which occupied a large piece of Tom McCall but was a large event with multiple tents and a stage. The form factor of the park makes it roughly a block wide and extremely long, but I really enjoyed the space because it felt well scaled. with a row of trees on the city side and the river side, it helps to create divisions in the space as well as provide shade and shelter for park goers.

I saw three redevelopment projects today: The South Waterfront, Riverplace, and the Brewery Blocks.

The South Waterfront was everything I hoped. Really well designed buildings, great streetscape and water scape, and good connections to the city. Especially to the huge medical center on top of the hill directly behind the development that the aerial tram is connected to. The buildings are spread out enough to allow for infill without feeling empty and the massive highway that could be an issue is higher than the street level of the waterfront, so its not an issue. The integration of the light industry into the development is also an interesting choice.

The Riverplace development is greatly plagued by the double decker freeway bridge that is located between above it. The road noise is so massive that it ruins the area near the waterfront and ruins the quality of the waterfront space. The view is also towards the highway and industry, instead of trees and green like the south waterfront. It just wasn't great.

The Brewery Blocks project was really interesting. It took the industrial aesthetic and adaptive reuse to heart.   This Five Block section of Portland features a number of interesting things, including a courtyard that has a smokestack in it that is a restaurant. Its an interesting area and no doubt has become a catalyst for the revitalization of the whole area.

Photos and Drawings to come. Another day in Portland and then its on to Seattle.

Denver Day 2

So today was my driving day. By chance, I received a small SUV for today, which whether by chance or reality appeared to fit the scale of Denver rather well. Compared to Omaha, this city operates on a far larger scale, in part due to population, in part due to the plains being unrestrictive and the sprawl of the car centric city. I spent most of my day looking at some of the new developments in the area, some of which were incredibly successful and some which were not so great. I'll go development by development and share some of my observations about it all.

Belmar Colorado: This is a really interesting project because It seems to be phased in an appropriate way. What I mean by that is that density is being built in a progressive way that feels right to me. Certain parcels are fully developed while adjacent parcels are still greenfields. The downtown area is built with a mix of densities from a 10 story luxury condo building to a 2/3 story retail/office space. The form factor of the streets feels right (the character is good and the dimensionality of the space is urban enough without being daunting. They have also created a really great public plaza which is multi functional as a outdoor lounge, cafe area in the summer and in the winter it is transformed to an ice skating rink. The elevation change of the central area is subtle but meaningful. The street furniture (light poles, parking boxes, planters, benches, ect) is also used in such a way as to delineate the space to make it feel intimate while leaving other spaces large enough to accommodate crowds. There is also quite a mix of product types from condos apartments and lofts to 2 story courtyard homes. Parking is also really smart: if you want to park on the street it costs money while adjacent surface lots and garages are free. This combines convenience and neighborhood feel of parallel parked cars while still accommodating the volume used for this development type. I also forgot one thing, and that is that the west Denver geographic placement positions this development in Denver's preferred quarter: proximate to downtown and at the same time on the mountain side for easy access.

Cherry Creek North: This is an interesting development because it mediates between an old walkable town center and a mall. Originally the site of a Sears and parking, the 16 block site merges the mall and the town together with mixed use retail/housing. Theres an evident mix of products from gated upscale condos to some apartments and hotels. The unique thing about this one block by 16 block development is the greater density that it has to either side of it, yet it all seems to work. It also serves to attract day to day business because the end is a whole foods. This project is the only one I've seen on this trip that is large scale and at the same time integrates a wide range of projects and eras of construction in it, and the Sears is still there, with the autocenter in a parking garage.

Denver Tech Center: I visited the tech center because it is this suburban high density office park that is one of the most important centers of industry. Its pretty much as terrible as billed. Talking to development investors yesterday they point out the fact that its very successful because it is close to CEO's residences and therefore when making location decisions is preferable to the long drives to the city. The odd part about the tech center here is that it is just that, its not really a metropolis in its own right, it's simply a gathering of parking lots and large buildings, and hotels. Its on the ring road that supports the airport, and served by the light rail.

Stapleton: The site of the former airport, this site really wasn't right for a few reasons. The North and South Parcels both were too spread out and didn't have the right street form factor. Parking lots still cover the area directly beyond the street, and the north parcel has succumbed to the large box retailers, and the creation of large parking lots to support them. The concentration seemed to be on dense single family homes, which might be right for the area, but seems a little artificially dense.

Lowry: While its located on the opposite side of town from the preferred quarter, this former aircraft base seems to be starting in an interesting way. Hints of heavy industrial language are on some of the townhomes, and a former steam plant has been transformed into luxury lofts. but the most unique part of the development is the remaining aircraft hangers in the center. One hasnt been redeveloped yet but the other is a museum. The juxtaposition in scales is really fascinating between the space required for plans and scale of people. I guess thats where some developments struggle is to maintain the density for walkable urbanism in places that exceed scale.

That was the greatest resonating point from today is that the change in scales between large parcels and single buildings is necessary and is done to various successes. The most developed and sustained project I visited was the Cherry Creek Project, where scale was challenged and was successful.

Denver Day 1

So coming into Denver I immediately started looking at the Union Station Complex. Right now a vast expanse of land, it seeks to become the core of Denver's transportation center. Denver appears to be a city continuing to define itself, seeking to move to an 'A' city, but plagued with issues of transportation. This may be in part because Denver is a Car Centric City. It was founded on the gold and oil industries, and as a supporter to the mountains it became this infrastructural and industrial city, requiring the trucking industry to take goods to places in the mountains that rail simply could not get to.

The new movement is this transportation initiative, which seeks to put in place a comprehensive transport system by 2019, but faces the challenges of a slowing economy and lack of tax revenue. The challenge is making it a reality. Probably the most curious thing is how private investors have responded to this plan already and built towards what they understand will be.

Thats the cool thing about riverfront park, is that it has created the end of this 16th Street Axis and transformed it to become this vibrant center of life and downtown living.  

One of the most interesting things about Union Station in Denver is the fact that it is not in the center of downtown. Union Station is actually on the fridge of downtown, no doubt at the edge of a what was a large rail yard. When restructuring the transit plan for the city it was critical to tie the CBD to Downtown. Luckily for a few decades work has been progressing on the 16^th street pedestrian mall. This mall, filled with chain stores and walking streets, seems to be a great move towards fighting the condition that exists in many cities of the lifeless downtown. The best part about it is that there is a free bus which runs down the mall stopping frequently but allowing movement through this axis to be easy and simple. The axis is also extending into the river walk development which I touched on earlier.  

As for the urban quality of the mall, I’d say its not bad. In parts the road widens and the center becomes this shaded hang out space. Like New York, pianos have been set up for the public to come play so that creates this calm, fun vibe.

The reoccurring issue of the viability of the chain is ever present here. I think especially some of the new developments I have seen have to harbor these chains because they are the only ones with the viability and capital to invest right now. Denver seems like the prototypical city for many of the most successful chains, notably Chipotle. Those of you who know me know that I love chipotle, but its funny to think of the roots of the operation as being in Denver and not Texas, for example. Nonetheless the aesthetic predispositions and menu were first tested here and then expanded to the large chains they are today. I guess what makes chains so much easier to run instead of independent stores is simple economies of scale. The fact that all the research, distribution chains, signage, and menus can be mass produced makes the entry costs for a new restaurant easy as well as virtually ensuring its success. Theres very little risk for these kind of enterprises, and cities jump on because its easy to permit and build something like this because it’s a fairly standard product type.

From meeting with some development investors they harped on the notion that Denver contains a lot of pockets of Viability. This was something that I definitely ran across a lot when I was here. A couple block walk in any direction and suddenly the grid disintegrated and parking lots and 1 story buildings ran amuck. Even on the riverfront development, the actual axis was very successful but any divergence from that and you were back into light industrial.  The same went for a drive along state highway 6, as I went there were places with a lot of economic activity and strip malls that had recovered and then there were places that were run down and abandoned, within a matter of blocks.

Another interesting development pattern of Denver is the clustering of government and cultural institutions. This can either have positive or negative consequences. One of the benefits is the fact that you can see a variety of things without driving, as is the case with the Denver Art museum, history museum, and a theater all within the civic center cultural complex. In addition Denver has a performing arts building that houses the theater, ballet, opera, and symphony. While this makes it cheaper and easier to build the cultural institution vs. individual buildings, one can argue that this concentrates evening economic activity instead of dispersing it throughout the city.

The choice that Denver made in developing its light rail is an interesting approach to this expanding city planning. The easiest path forward was to build along the highway. But in doing this they are directly competing with Cars, which is either a good or bad thing. I think in certain cases that approach is not ideal because it makes little difference for some people to drive and park, but in downtown it is a good thing because you can offset taking the train with the cost of parking, making it more efficient and cheaper to take the train. It varies though based on the location.