Finding the right mix and right design

Finding the right mix and right design for retail will go a long way toward determining whether redevelopment of New York’s World Trade Center site will succeed, says an Urban Land Institute panel. A panel of retail development experts from the US and abroad concluded that stores and restaurants would do more than anything else to connect the Trade Center site to surrounding areas. The site needs 600,000 to 1 million square feet of retail to achieve “critical mass,” the experts said. Street-level retailing, unlike a typical institutional space, creates an energetic atmosphere conducive to socializing, according to the panel. u