Bigger Isn’t Always Better
July 16th, 2008, by Jeremy Krygsman
La Bon Marché in Paris
Eaton’s in Toronto
Macy’s in New York
Large format retail has existed in various forms since the concept first emerged in the 1850′s, when Le Bon Marché opened in Paris. It was four storeys high and one of the largest shopping centres in the world at the time. In time, famed department stores like Macy’s in New York, or Eaton’s in Toronto acted as magnets for tens of thousands of shoppers.
All three have several things in common: they are all more than one storey high, Macy’s and Eaton’s being almost ten storeys. They all take up just a single city block. For example, Macy’s flagship store fits around 100,000 square metres of retail space into just 3 acres. The Walmart mentioned later in this article has 21,000 sq. m on 18 acres.
They all have stunning architectural detail, such as beautiful stonework, windows, and cornices. They all face directly onto the street, which is lined with windows to display merchandise and covered with awnings.
The entire experience is filled with detail and colour. These are places you would not mind just sitting on a bench and watching the people walk by along the sidewalk, and the traffic whizzing by on the street. Now this is big done well. Yes, big can be good, as I have shown above. Read on for why many modern developments are big, and bad.
Below is an image that shows the relative sizes of several places. The two red squares on the left are what the average size of a building and city block look like in downtown Toronto. Then moving down, we see the shopping centre, located near Phoenix, Arizona, mentioned in my previous post. Finally, a massive Walmart Supercentre, also located near Phoenix. The supercentre is half a mile long on either side. That should fit a lot of retail space, right? Absolutely not, because as you can see, almost all of the space is taking up by useless and empty black pavement!
Need I say any more? This is the epitome of big done bad. A massive expanse of empty space, punctuated by nothing, with a glorified warehouse (Walmart) and a badly laid out collection of small stores on the perimeter. Nothing is more than one storey high. Most shockingly, almost the entire parking lot is empty, in the middle of the day. Actually, in a tour of dozens of similar big box developments, I did not find a single one with a parking lot that was more than half full.
People could ask, “But if land is cheap and plentiful, what does it matter if these developments pave it all over anyway?” My question is, why not make better use of it and get an even bigger return on investment on that already cheap land? It is quite clear that the above development could double the amount of retail space and still have ample parking. The increase in expected profits from doing that could be put to use designing a space that is actually attractive to people, they actually want to come there because they enjoy themselves, not only because they want to buy stuff.
In other words, building on a human scale. Can it really be that bad? Next time, I will some drawings of how a large format retail centre should be laid out. If you found this article interesting, please comment!
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I ate my Tuscany salad to this post, very good read! I really like your blog man!
hey jeremy!!
i didn’t know you did this kind of stuff!
say hi to seychelle for me
and hi from the family!!
I need to read your other articles, but I would like to mention some things. I live in Houston, TX, the most populous city in state. (Dallas-Fort Worth is a metroplex in two separate counties.) If I were to go to a highrise store Downtown, I would have to pay to park. However, Wal-Mart provides free parking to attract low-income customers. I consider myself to be a moderate/centrist. I see a lot of people talking about “human development” and “enablement”, but they tend to presuppose that low-income individuals do not matter in the larger scheme of things.