This year’s Congress will include a number of sessions explicitly about coding. Zoning codes have long fascinated new urbanists, especially in their power to set bad planning decisions into stone, but now we’re getting around to actually implementing some really great alternatives to the usual zoning regs. It’s an exciting time for zoning all around the country, and naturally many of the best innovations are covered in a new title from CNU, Codifying New Urbanism (PAS report 526, available soon from the CNU Store).

The usual argument behind deregulating uses and regulating forms hasn’t changed: people in urban environments expect some messiness and diversity of use, and besides, many uses (even light manufacturing) aren’t as repugnant as they might have been prior to deindustrialization. Plus, market forces do a better job of keeping heavy industry out of comparatively higher-value residential or commercial areas than even zoning ordinances do. On the other hand, providing strong directives on the form of building allows new development to take on predictable shapes — something which people genuinely appreciate, from the neighbors whose yards will be shaded to the passerby who know that the buildings will reinforce the scale of the street. The old 1910s and 1920s zoning laws read and look like today’s form-based ordinances, with their emphasis on illustrations showing particular building envelopes and lack of references to required loading docks or efficiency apartments.

One term I’m particularly fond of, but which other new urbanists haven’t seemed to notice, is dezoning — loosely form-based, incentive-driven, largely use-neutral codes written by Mark Hinshaw of LMN Architects in Seattle. The Bainbridge Island and downtown Tacoma codes are sublimely straightforward; the Tacoma ordinance, in particular, offers a sensible menu of easily understood bonuses to encourage quality development: separate FAR buckets for commercial and residential encourage residential construction, submitting to design review tacks on a few extra FAR points, a short menu of sensible pedestrian-friendly amenities gets a few more.

APA this year included a workshop on form-based coding that, by all reports, provided a good overview of the rapidly growing number of form-based codes nationwide.

One very early example in the “Codifying” book that I was dimly aware of before is Christopher Alexander’s City of Gardens apartment house zoning for Pasadena. In Edge City, Alexander (presented by author Garreau as a thoughtful and spot-on, if kooky, character) described how the zoning ordinance sought to place gardens before buildings and therefore make the new apartment houses beautiful enough to insert into single family neighborhoods. The code mandates usable, beautiful open spaces instead of mindlessly requiring front, rear, or side setbacks that too often end up as wasted space — even if the result is watered-down, as Alexander complains to Garreau. I, for one, love living in a courtyard building with negligible front, side, or rear setbacks, since it means that we all get to enjoy a lovely courtyard in the center (and at 60 dua, natch!).

One not very exciting new ordinance, unfortunately (but naturally, given City Hall’s bias towards stasis), is Chicago’s new ordinance. Sure, a few concessions to the ZTEC organizing work were tossed in, but c’mon — can’t you at least re-number the R districts instead of assigning them “X.5” designations?

Here’s an interesting resource: Comparing Campus Plans from Ayers/Saint/Gross, a leading planner of university campuses nationally. Figure-ground drawings for scores of college campuses nationwide, drawn to the same scale, and selected statistics about the schools’ size — presented side by side. Academic competition on another level.

As part of its 1992 CityPlan, Vancouver began directing new residential growth into neighborhood commercial corridors. This approach makes eminent sense: many commercial corridors have been in decline since the streetcar lines disappeared, and all those new residents have to go somewhere.

C-2 is the standard commercial zoning in Vancouver neighborhoods; it was changed to allow for 50′ tall, four story buildings with ground floor retail. After the first few dozen C-2 mixed-use buildings were completed, neighbors, especially in single-family neighborhoods, began complaining — principally about shadows, but also about noise and other issues common where the transition in neighborhood scale is poorly handled.

In 2002, the city reviewed C-2 zoning’s urban design and released a series of recommendations, many affecting how the buildings should step down in the back, to avoid towering over neighbors on the other side of the alley.

These recommendations are broadly applicable elsewhere — especially for B-2/C-2 or B-3/C-3 zoning here in Chicago, which broadly speaking permit almost identical buildings. Although Chicago is a more challenging environment for underground parking, our parking ratios are generally not as high as those in Vancouver.

Vancouver’s best known in urban design circles for the glassy highrise-and-townhouse combos set amidst parks ringing its downtown. Four-story buildings may be nowhere near as flashy, but ultimately provide another housing option at a more human scale. Four stories is a sweet height for commercial corridors: tall enough to provide substantial density and streetwall definition, but short enough to duck under the high-cost world of steel frames and elevators.

The Charrette Center has compiled photos of CVSes built to the sidewalk from around the country, as ammunition for the next time they propose a parking lot out front.

Becky Yerak’s column in today’s Trib describes the sales success of Dominick’s (a Safeway unit) in downtown Chicago. The economics are too good to give up, even if theft is an issue when the groceries are upstairs and the employees are downstairs.

(And yes, I have photos of the Lincoln Park and West Loop stores here).

Dominick’s thinks outside its deli

?BECKY YERAK
Published March 2, 2004

When Dominick’s planned the deli section of a store in Lincoln Park, its eyes were bigger than shoppers’ appetite for convenience food.

“We used to talk about `home-meal replacement.’ That was the wave of the future. Everything you needed in a box …” recalled Michael Mallon, Dominick’s vice president of real estate. “Believe me, there’s a lot of business in home-meal replacement, but not as much as we originally set up in the store.”

So the Safeway Inc. chain downsized the deli, added a Starbucks and a bakery, and watched sales rise 20 percent. “More importantly, profits picked up also,” Mallon said at an International Council of Shopping Centers event last week.

Dominick’s landed the spot at Fullerton and Sheffield Avenues because it agreed to build a two-level store in the mixed-use development, owned by DePaul University.

“It’s the first two-level grocery store in the Chicago area,” Mallon said. The store does “in excess of $500 per square foot.”

But “shrinkage”–stolen merchandise–is a bigger problem in a two-story store. In fact, Dominick’s labor costs at the site are 2 percentage points higher than at single-level stores.

As a result, developers seeking tenants for a two-level store should brace for tougher rent talks. Nonetheless, “we’re looking at other two-level locations in Chicagoland,” Mallon said.

Meanwhile, near the West Loop, sales at Dominick’s at Madison and Halsted Streets “are way beyond our expectations,” Mallon said. “We’re doing in excess of $550 a square foot.”

A Dominick’s going up downtown at Columbus Drive, Illinois Street and St. Clair Street will be “something Chicago has not seen,” Mallon added. With roof-top parking for 150 cars, a cart escalator, and valet and dropoff, it “will be the flagship store for Dominick’s,” he said.

The immediate area’s average household income exceeds $150,000.

Crain’s reports that Crate & Barrel is opening a fourth store at North & Clybourn, replacing its C&B Outlet at the northeast corner with a larger version of its hip CB2 concept. The outlet will move two blocks up the street, to Clybourn Galleria. The Crate & Barrel flagship and Land of Nod children’s stores will remain at the northwest corner.

I’m not entirely sure whether Crate’s presence there has been all that good for the corner’s emergent urbanism. CEO Gordon Segal has substantial ownership interests in three of the four corners of North and Clybourn: every corner but the CTA station, including the land under the Home Depot Expo. A proposal by Segal and residential developer Bill Smith for two 28-story residential towers around the Home Depot has been stalled in court while the developers fight the anti-residential zoning placed there to protect manufacturers between Clybourn and the river. (Interestingly, Smith is also the largest industrial developer on Goose Island.)

Add that ownership to C&B’s substantial customer draw to the area and Segal emerges as the corridor’s biggest player. But the chain’s urban design is simply better than average. The building which now houses the Outlet was the first retail development on North, which was then a sketchy industrial street best known for prostitution. The building is an architecturally graceless stripmall with a small parking lot facing the crucial North & Clybourn corner; most of the bulk is at the eastern edge, along Halsted.

At the North & Halsted corner, the building does fill out the corner with display windows, but the entrance to the Outlet faces the parking. The apartments above don’t have windows facing south — possibly to block any views of Cabrini-Green, just a few blocks south. The presence of two parking-lot curb cuts on such a small site considerably complicates traffic flow at the three-way North-Clybourn-Halsted intersection. Furthermore, I doubt that the parking lot does anything to help business; instead of heading to one of the new parking garages nearby, shoppers jostle for space in the tiny lot out front. Nor does there have to be a loading zone in front; the site backs up to the Brown Line elevated, which would make an ideal loading zone.

By the time the C&B flagship store was designed, the area had become sufficiently upscale to justify higher grade materials. The store filled out the acute angle well, but the entrance again faced the parking lot in the middle of the block. Late last year, an entrance was finally added along North, to capitalize on the growing foot traffic.

A while back, I remember reading something about Segal funding a rehab of the North/Clybourn CTA station — which, thanks to the neighborhood’s changing fortunes, has seen daily ridership double since 1995 (and Saturday ridership go from 0 to 8,000 passengers). Nothing new on that front.

After many requests, I’ve started a gallery of photos of big-box retailers that have made a worthy attempt to fit into Chicago’s urban fabric. Many big boxes claim that they simply can’t have doors opening out onto the sidewalk, that they need to have a moat of parking out in front. That’s nonsense, especially in locations where many people arrive on foot, on transit, or on bikes. If you demand different designs, you’ll get them — and credit goes to the Department of Planning and Development for doing just that.

The gallery will be updated as I take more shots. Rumor has it that the new ex-Ward’s, now-Target at Addison and California (another fragment of the old Riverside streetcar-company amusement park) is a multi-level store; the recent sub-zero temperatures have sapped my wherewithal to snap photos so far.

The new store is just a mile away from the highest-grossing Target in the chain, at Logan, Elston, and Western. The multi-level Target on Colorado in Pasadena was also a conversion of an old department store (Broadway? Bullocks?), as is the Wal-Mart at Crenshaw Plaza in Los Angeles. One of Target’s first ground-up multi-level stores is on Nicollet Mall, the transit mall in downtown Minneapolis; it’s part of the corporate headquarters. The store under construction at Roosevelt and Clark will have one level, a corner entrance, and structured parking.

With Wilson Yard, Target will join a growing number of boxes that have moved past the riverside industrial corridors and onto the walkable commercial streets. Home Depot opened its first multilevel store there; the Brooklyn mini-Home Depot is in a strip center and has only a token mezzanine. Best Buy and Circuit City also took ground-floor, sidewalk-fronting spaces last year.

One reason why these chains are willing to adapt, besides (relatively) progressive management, is that the demographics of the market are too hard to resist. The new Target is within five miles of 1.5 million people — five or ten times more people than in the suburbs. (Typical population densities on the north side are about 20,000 per square mile.) The Home Depot on Halsted sits in a neighborhood where per-capita income is nearly twice the national norm. Retailers would be stupid not to jump through hoops to reach these customers. At the same time, it’s notable that these locations are not in downtown high-rises, but in real neighborhoods.

The desirable demographics are one reason why upmarket chains like Whole Foods Market have been leaders at adapting to gentrified urban environments. Whole Foods has opened two sidewalk-fronting stores here, with another under construction; similar designs are in Portland, Manhattan, Brooklyn, San Francisco, Austin, Philadelphia, Washington, Boston, Cambridge, and Baltimore.

For only $7.5 million (including fees), preservation groups have purchased the Farnsworth House. The purchase price is a good $3 million above the opening bid, and far above what the groups had pledged just a few days ago — it will be interesting to see who stepped up to the plate at the last minute.

The Tribune posted this helpful map of Starbucks locations within the city of Chicago today, alongside an article lamenting the lack of ‘Bucks on the south side (a void spotlighted by the opening of Hyde Park’s second Farstucks). Fun fact: the furthest one can get from a Starbucks in the Loop (defined as Michigan to river to Congress) is about 1,400 feet — above the Sears Tower Starbucks.

Now up: a gallery of photos of the High Line in NYC.

“Most people dream a completely different world than what we’ve created.” Cowgoddess Hathor

“Putting 500 really funky stores under one roof would be cool, but no one will finance it.” Daniel Henninger