Bay Street mall design “really abysmal” says urban planner Daniel Iacofano of MIG, Inc.
Below is an excerpt of an interview with Daniel Iacofano by The Inclusive City, a website that promotes the concept of “inclusive design”and Iacofano’s book about it, which he co-authored with Susan M. Goltsman. Iacofano and Goltsman co-founded the premier urban planning and design firm MIG, Inc. in Berkeley. Inclusive design refers to an approach to planning that promotes social and economic equity and community development, with full interaction and accessibility for all residents. Click here to read the entire interview.
Are there any specific examples of design under so-called New Urbanism that may look good from the outside, but don’t achieve the principles of social inclusion you espouse?
Daniel Iacofano: The Bay Street project in Emeryville, California, fails on many different levels. It purports to be a Main Street, with cars driving through, but it’s really a mall without a roof, with housing integrated into it. There are no neighborhood-serving stores where the people who live there can shop; you don’t go into a Gap every day—that store is a regional draw. And people who work there can’t afford to live there. There are no free gathering spaces and no parks. It’s not an authentic neighborhood and socially it just doesn’t work.
From the point of view of design, it’s really abysmal. Again, they’re trying to mimic a street, with sidewalks, streets and gutters. But it would have been better from an accessibility perspective—for people with disabilities—to eliminate the curbs and use a different technique of delineating the pedestrian right-of-way from the auto right-of-way. That’s where urban design is moving, by the way—towards a shared right-of-way.
So they totally missed it in Emeryville because they were lured into old ideas of what a city looks like. They had the opportunity to control the environment and make it universal design; instead they erected their own barriers. It was an uncritical re-adaptation of a Main Street icon and fails in what it’s trying to do. They began with a packaged idea and made no attempt to create an authentic environment.
The Bay Street Mall is a phony civic experience. The architecture is particularly galling with its saccrin pretense of urbanity. It’s a Disneyland experience except without the costumed cartoon animals. A perfect coup de grace for a city with no pride.
As another commenter said, imagine what it’ll look like in twenty years…
He’s right. “Socially, Emeryville doesn’t work”. People live in Emeryville because of its proximity to other locations. It doesn’t have it’s own social identity. And with the yahoos we have in City Council believing everything the developers say… condos, condos, condos…. but like the article says, no place for the residents to shop or dine they continue to drive us out to surrounding cities to spend our money. If I wanted to eat at PF Changs and Elephant Bar, I’d live in Walnut Creek.
I think Bay St is fine the way it is. It’s better than nothing.The only stores we had available were the ones in Powell Plaza and K-Mart which closed down a couple of years ago. I’ve been living in Emeryville for over 19 years and seen it grow a lot in the past couple of years. Bay St. is a lot like San Jose’s Santana Row. I don’t think people really care about the “DESIGN” they just think of it as a get away place. Where they have a place to shop, eat, and entertainment.
The question is not whether the Bay Street mall is better than fallow ground; I think just about all can agree that some economic and social activity is better than none. Rather the question is whether this mall is an asset for the people of Emeryville, were we sold something that isn’t there, was the Council doing its job or mearly letting the developer call the shots? Ultimately, is Bay Street really an embodyment of the civic experience of our town or is it really just a regional shopping mall? I think the first commenter has it right.
The final insult is that this mall is built on an Olone burial site. This was the site of the largest Native American shellmound on the west coast. Think of the economic activity we could have brought from a land use that made more celebration of this…never mind the qustionable ethics of building a Gap store on our ancester’s bones.
Yes, Bay Street is not perfect. In fact, it is far from it. However, it IS trend-setting. Bay Street is one of the earliest examples of that type of shopping environment. That paradigm has been replicated widely now. Of course it would be a different project/place if we started over today, but what wouldn’t be? When Bay Street was built it was cutting edge and a vast improvement over the indoor mall model. Changes have been made to Bay Street since it opened that have improved it and I’m sure further changes will be made over its lifespan.
All this complaining from the far left. That’s all you do is whine. Look, Emeryville is considered a Bay Area sucsess story. Every city is envious of us and all you Secret News readers want to do is bring us down to Oakland level. This mall is great and the new Bay Street expansion is going to be much bigger and even better. If you hate the town so much, why don’t you just leave?
It’s not about hating or whining about Emeryville. It’s about wanting Emeryville to be fantastic. The fact that people disagree about the direction it’s headed in, is a good thing. You need passionate people who disagree in order to have a balanced place. If we hated Emeryville, we wouldn’t be reading about it and posting comments.
So now it has devolved into a ‘love it or leave it’ nostrum. Here lies the last refuge of a scoundrel. Not much to say after this kind of a childish rant…
the architectural style of the mall is utter crap. but the urban design is fine. curbs are okay, there are curb cuts to allow wheelchair access. nothing to see here, move along.