Can Fake Downtowns Grow Organically … and Feel Authentic?
Maybe today's manufactured place experiences will morph somewhat organically -- or least evolve over time -- so they don't fee so fake anymore.
The Original Farmers Market in Los Angeles feels authentic but it’s really an experience manufactured and curated by one landowner.
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If you’ve ever been to the Fairfax District in Los Angeles – near Television City and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art – you’ve probably pondered the juxtaposition between The Original Farmers Market and The Grove right next to it. Though both emerged from the plans of the same landowning entity – A.F. Gilmore, which has owned the in the area for almost a century and a half – they couldn’t feel more different.
Simply put, The Original Farmers Market feels authentic, while The Grove does … not.
At first glance the difference is striking: The Grove, owned by developer Rick Caruso (who’s not running for mayor or governor) is a slick early 2000s shopping center with chain stories. The Farmers Market, by contrast, seems more like it grew organically.
Yet the Farmers Market really isn’t authentic in a certain way. Although it was, more than a century ago, a place where farmers actually pulled up their wagons and carts to sold their produce, it was converted by the Gilmore family almost 100 years ago into a commercial food hall with a restaurant (the regional greasy spoon chain DuPar’s) attached. So, yes, it grew out of an organic pattern of truck farmers selling their goods but it is no less a commercial enterprise than The Grove – and like The Grove its profits benefit the Gilmore company.
Which makes me wonder whether, 50 years from now, The Grove will be a beloved piece of authentic Los Angeles or just another aging shopping center needing a facelift.
What’s Authentic And What’s Not?
I bring this up because I got a lot of response the other day to my post on the difference between older, small-scale downtowns and big warehouse retailers like Costco. One commenter even noted that it almost seemed like the prewar downtowns and Main Street districts that we love are not replicable today … that there are a limited number of them and we have to cherish them and that’s all there is to it.
I’m not sure so that’s true. We see plenty of older shopping areas – especially regional malls – being converted into what you might call fake downtowns. Some of them are extremely high-end, high-quality places, like Santana Row in San Jose, that are walkable but don’t feel authentic. Others are a deliberate attempt to replicate an small-town downtown feel, like Sugar Land Town Square outside of Houston and (the eternally struggling) Rockville Town Square in suburban D.C. – which, again, are walkable but don’t always feel authentic.
Sugar Land Town Square outside of Houston.
Why? It’s mostly because, whereas old downtowns and Main Street strips have many small-scale property owners, these fake downtowns are typically owned by a major real estate company that is managing the thing comprehensively.
It’s kind of ironic in a way, because one of the biggest problems older downtowns have is a proliferation of small lots with individual (often absentee) owners who don’t keep their properties up. The fake downtowns don’t have this problem and they’re often extremely well managed and secure compared to real downtowns.
But that’s part of the reason they don’t feel authentic: because nobody’s going to open up a quirky little store or a pop-up space or an art gallery or some kind of non-commercial space like a branch library. There’s too much pressure to make money off of every available square foot. The experience feels manufactured – because it is.
And yet.
If we are going to create more suburban walkable town centers – and, no question, there’s a huge market for this – we’ve got to find some way to make the experience of being in them feel more authentic. I’ve begun to see this in some of the regional mall re-dos.
The Gradual Evolution of Regional Malls
Yes, some regional malls just get torn down completely and replaced by a fake downtown, like Santana Row, which was built on the site of a former shopping center. But more and more, we are seeing these regional malls evolving into more authentic places, with older retail spaces staying put – often with new tenants – but new things being added, such as housing and climbing gyms.
Not long ago, for example, I toured the Parkway Plaza shopping center in El Cajon, outside of San Diego. The majority of the mall is currently owned by Israeli bond-holders and the city is considering buying the whole thing just to re-do it. So I expected to find a dead mall. But when I got there, what I found was more like a transitional mall.
Parkway Plaza in El Cajon, California, is evolving, not dying.
Yes, some parts of the mall are not doing well and looking tired. But it’s mostly leased up, slowly evolving into something different. Housing – the missing link for many of these malls – would help and will probably be added at some point. But what’s there now is far from a disaster. And you can imagine, as such a place evolves, that the inline storefronts will become the quirky Main Street of tomorrow – small spaces that need to be filled somehow, even if the mall owner makes its real money somewhere else.
One of the most interesting example of malls evolving into fake downtowns that might eventually be authentic is Valencia Town Center in Santa Clarita, just
