Denver's 16th Street Mall is a pretty cool place, a remarkable success story in terms of revitalizing downtown shopping, dining, and transit. It's length is open only to pedestrians and free busses that run between Union Station and the Civic Center Station. While I've been working in downtown, I've always been amazed by its vitality.
Apparently, though, vitality is not enough. Planners want to get people to linger. The question is, can they do that without screwing up the success?
http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_28503640/study-revitalize-denvers-mall-seeks-linger-factor
During the weekday, the mall is highly active with commuters (early morning and evening) and pedstrians from the downtown area or the convention center. But planners are concerns that people are going to one place or another, and not just hanging out on the various benches along the way, and on the weekends and at night it's often a much quieter place.
The problem is, if you're looking for something more, how do you do it? Do you get rid of the busses, as some are proposing. That's fine, except it pulls some of the bus traffic onto less convenient parallel streets. What will compel people to sit and chat with others, or just take in some sun, and can you somehow make that happen? What demographic are you going for, and what do you do about the demographic that already has time to sit around on the mall?
I'm happy that there's discussion of what to do to make the mall even more of a success story than it is, but I worry about the conflicting needs of retail owners, entertainment and dining owners, commuters, residents, locals, and folk who come in and out of town each day for work.
Westlake Mall in Seattle has done a good job. For years, it was a gathering place for young goths and homeless kids. They really liked being scary and out of control, and people didn't congregate much.
This year, there are ping-pong tables, chess, and checkers, and great food trucks line it. There is a small but fabulous play area for little kids, and they are fun to watch. The scary kids lost their power, and now they've gone somewhere else. It's a very nice place to sit and people-watch, and I doubt it cost much money.
+Paula Moore There's actually a decent amount of "linger" in certain sections of the 16th Street Mall, around Skyline Park and the block or two south of that, where they've made an effort to add features that people can engage with or enjoy (a garden, chess tables, etc.)
+Dave Hill yeah, but the ping-pong ROCKS!
Unfortunately, I think there is a very simple answer to this one. Having been to the similar mall in Minneapolis, the huge difference: panhandlers. I spent a huge amount of time on the mall in Minneapolis, and on 16th, I try to get on and off ASAP. And it's the Greenpeace walk-up-and-shake-your-hand folks that are the worst. The whole mall feels like the scene in "Airplane!" with the Hare Krishnas…
+Tim White Yeah, that's definitely a factor. The Greenpeace folk I can wave off with little problem (usually, as I'm reading my book, I don't give them the eye contact entree.
The street musicians I enjoy and I'll drop off a dollar in their bucket.
The general street people scene … I am conflicted about. I'm more than a bit reluctant to come up with some sort of legal solution to shoo them away, but their presence does probably have an impact in certain areas.