The Santa Monica city council will soon consider plans for redeveloping Santa Monica Place. Owner Macerich’s plans, developed by Jon Jerde, will scrape the site for underground parking and extend Third Street through the existing site. (This is an unexpected windfall to Sears, which stands to become the southern terminus of Third Street.) A pair of two-story retail buildings would line an extension of Third Street: small shops at ground level and four anchors (including the existing Macy’s and Robinsons-May) largely on the second level. Atop the podium on the the west half of the block is a rooftop garden with restaurants and an office building. A few live-work units would prop up the street presence on Second Street.

Personally, I’m somewhat puzzled by the sudden interest — as at Block 37, in the last pre-Mills scheme released to the public, but also seen in some lifestyle centers like Paseo Colorado or Clarendon Market Common — in building these rooftop dining gardens and, more importantly, selling them as huge public benefits. Sure, they’re pretty with nice views (in this case, of the ocean and pier), sure, they’re green, and sure, they’re open to the public, but won’t they end up serving mostly as fenced-in outdoor dining? In a location like Santa Monica, is outdoor dining really all that interesting, and (considering how profitable it is) why does anyone consider it to be a public benefit?

And in this case, a better urban design approach would maintain the somewhat higher podium heights found nearby (in the 50-80′ range), possibly by moving the office component from a freestanding tower into the podium. A cluster of high-rise residential towers isn’t the end of the world, but a little more thought should be given to integrating those into the rest of the project — not that Macerich, as a pure-play retail developer, has any interest in thinking about that.

Update 26 Jan: today’s Times has a timely article on how the “food court” atop the Time Warner Center is faring. Seems that, for many in the haute cuisine set, entering a mall is just too gauche for words. Some sort of direct street access would have been preferable, I suppose.