New designs fit big boxes into main streets

Some supporters of New Urbanism believe that big box stores, typically built of dryvit faced cinderblocks and ranging from 25,000 sq. ft. to 250,000 sq. ft., have no place on traditional main streets. To date, very few such stores have located in urban settings. But new urbanists ignore big box stores at their peril: The nation’s top retailers, Wal-Mart, K-Mart and Sears — in addition to every major supermarket chain — thrive in big boxes. Three ways to redesign these stores so that they work in traditional neighborhoods are demonstrated in this article. If the New Urbanism is to compete on every level with suburban sprawl, big boxes must be at least profitable in traditionally planned towns, if not more profitable than in suburbia. Furthermore, big box development is a key to providing the full range of shopping opportunities for low to middle income residents in urban and town settings. The trend toward the New Urbanism and urban revitalization also presents opportunities for major retailers to take advantage of the population density and pedestrian traffic found in urban areas. Furthermore, big box stores are facing greater regulatory pressure from local officials to change their appearance and design. Major retailers are beginning to look at more neighborhood friendly designs and sites in a few locations in the U.S. Examples are in Miami, Florida (Shops at Sunset Place) and Gaithersburg, Maryland (Gaithersburg Square Mall). Safeway is planning a supermarket in a mixed use town center in Boulder, Colorado; a supermarket in Birmingham, Michigan, is modifying its storefront to make it more accessible and appealing to pedestrians. At least three distinct models allow big box stores to be integrated successfully into well-designed urban settings. All enable buildings to be brought to the street, provide access from both the sidewalk and parking areas without creating additional security problems for store owners, and avoid the deadening blank wall that is so common in big box designs. In all of these models, parking can be creatively incorporated into a combination of on-street spaces and deck, ramp or surface lots hidden by the stores. Urban vestibule In the urban vestibule model (Figure 1), an anchor, such as a grocery store, can maintain continuous street frontage while supplying the parking at the rear of the site. This building design is sensitive to retailer concerns of multiple entries. By creating a vestibule, with points of entry towards the street and the parking area, the security of a single entrance and exit into the store is maintained. The issue of monitoring entrances and exits is critical for merchants and cannot be overlooked. The urban vestibule is a good model for retrofit conditions where store expansion is coupled with a desire to stitch the building to the urban fabric. To avoid presenting a blank wall to pedestrians, display windows along the sidewalk are an important element. They also give the store an opportunity to market its products to pedestrian traffic. The vestibule and liner A variation on the urban vestibule concept, the vestibule and liner (Figure 2) goes a step further in activating the street. This model takes advantage of a trend, particularly in grocery stores, of adding new sections that amount to stores within stores. Thus, the 40,000 square foot grocery store of 15 years ago now has become a 60,000 square foot super grocery store with bakery, photo processing center, pharmacy and florist. In the vestibule and liner model, existing components within a store are compartmentalized and given street frontage. Access is provided to these operations from both the store and the street, which creates a more interesting streetscape. The concerns of store monitoring can be satisfied in two ways. The first is to have a two-sided counter in the liner shops, allowing purchases and service to customers from both the street and store, but customers from the street cannot enter the main store. That makes shopping more convenient for those who only want to get film processed, for example, but don’t want to enter the main store. Perhaps even better from the retailer’s point of view is to allow shoppers to enter into the main store through the liner stores, but not exit. That brings additional business into the main store, while keeping the integrity of the single exit. As with the urban vestibule model, there is access from both the street and parking lot. The “T” Model The “T” model, while still driven by a large anchor tenant, allows the creation of a true main street environment (Figure 3 and drawing on page 1). In this scenario, a large anchor has high profile street entrances, yet the mass of the store is buried behind liner retail shops. This model can support a variety of individually owned or operated shops, which benefit from the high traffic volume of the anchor. The anchor store, possibly a large apparel store, also benefits from the street traffic and cross-shopping from the smaller shops. The “T” Model is especially effective in new town developments and existing mall retrofits. Elements of an urban design The time constraints of our lives have led us to want to go to one location to “see it all” in a perceived value-oriented presentation rather than to comparison shop at a variety of similar stores. We have been led to believe that bigger is better. But what if these big boxes became mere elements of a pedestrian-oriented design, rather than the basis for an auto-dependent one? If equal attention is given to retailer criteria and urbanism, a commercial center could become an attraction instead of a necessary evil. If the success and energy of big box retailers can be harnessed, and the building types urbanized, they would become an important component in the urban formula, much as the traditional downtown department stores were not so long ago. Robert Gibbs is president of Gibbs Planning Group in Birmingham, Michigan. Dana Little, Barbara Stalburg and Charles Wilson are with Gibbs Planning Group.