Creating Hubs of “Happening-ness”
Mixed-use development creates an experiential environment.
Doug Thimm, AIA

The Gateway is the largest commercial development project in the history of Salt Lake City. The Gateway offers high-end retail and commercial functions as well as apartment and condominium housing. This mixed-use project includes 675,000 square feet of retail, 400,000 square feet of office space, 500 residential units and a cultural component that includes the 1.4 million square feet of below grade parking. Photo by MHTN Architects / Inland Group.

A trend toward experiential shopping has become part of many open-air, mixed-use developments across the country. These centers offer people any number of activities that make the venture desirable enough to return.

Retail stores, restaurants, entertainment venues, office facilities, and municipal buildings in common or separate configurations typically are part of a winning mix.  This can be enhanced by 24-hour enlivenment through the inclusion of a residential community in the form of condominiums, apartments or hotels.

Having a place where people live, work, and enjoy life turns the complex into a micro community. This nurtures businesses and restaurants, employment opportunities and places where people can recreate. It also fosters municipal transportation, extends parking stall usage to 24 rather than 8 hours, and creates a lively, people centered environment.

Developers who plan this “happening-ness” into their projects create settings that offer continuous attraction and opportunity.

Attraction

The Olympic Legacy Plaza and Fountain at the Gateway in Salt Lake City, Utah. Photo by MHTN Architects / Inland Group.

The first step, however, is to attract visitors, then engage them to stay and enjoy positive experiences well beyond what they initially came to do. The events must also be memorable and pleasant enough to make visitors want to return for more. 

Any number of compelling reasons can bring people to a mixed-use area. An office building or other workplaces in the project create consistent traffic and daily circulation for workers. A residential element adds activity from residents and their guests. These centers can be part of a transit-oriented development — an increasingly popular concept in many areas.

Community-oriented spaces and attractions such as open plazas, libraries, children’s museums, or civic gathering places also draw visitors. In some markets performance space might be included to pull in audiences that may not otherwise come to the location.

Creating the Path

Payson Village includes big box pads and other retail, office, cinema, and restaurant pads. Because of great exposure from streets and the freeway, the developer wanted some iconic/monumental elements in the architecture. Rendering courtesy of MHTN Architects / Woodbury Corporation

The first step in developing an ideal experience is to understand the regional market and its demographics. The second is bringing in a mix of key merchants that meet the target audience needs and are a magnet for other merchants. Of equal importance are the merchants’ locations within the development. Careful placement of retailers and attractions draws visitors through the development.

To that end, the complex must have a high degree of walk-ability so visitors can comfortably experience all parts without feeling a need to return to the car and drive to another area of the center.

It is important to create a center where groups of people can spend the afternoon with members going in different directions and re-joining later for a common activity. This means including retailers as diverse as dress shop boutiques, game arcades, and sporting goods shops. The right mix should continue to satisfy different needs at one major location.

Rio Grande Plaza is a mixed-use development in Salt Lake City that includes hotel, office and retail spaces, with restaurants and a parking structure beneath.  The project is located near old Rio Grande Railroad Station and close to The Gateway regional shopping center.  The developer partnered with Salt Lake City Redevelopment Agency and the Salvation Army to completely transform this block of downtown into a bustling commercial hub. Photo by Design Studios photography.

Community event spaces and entertainment opportunities can also create lifestyle activities. Additionally, interesting paths, landscape elements, appealing architecture, and water features can add to the visitors’ sense of being in a pleasant place.

Access

How people will get to the development is a vital consideration. It starts with the three most important factors: location, location, location. It continues with creating a variety of methods to reach the center. Visitors who arrive in automobiles must have parking that they perceive as safe, convenient, and simple to navigate.

Parking areas must be easily accessed from main circulation paths within the city or along major transportation corridors.  Also, they need to be well lit and allow for simple intuitive use by any first-time visitor.  After parking, patrons need a sense of safety and relative freedom to easily access the center as pedestrians. Their lasting impression should not be that it took too long to park or find the car, and traffic was a mess.

More of the U.S. population walks, bikes, and uses public transit each year. So, a successful development will also be accessible to public transportation and be pedestrian- and bicycle-friendly.

Planning

The Olympic Legacy Plaza and Fountain at the Gateway in Salt Lake City, Utah. The Legacy Plaza is a vibrant and active space that features the Dancing Water Fountain, waterfalls, performance amphitheater, and activity spaces. Photo by Brian Griffin Photography.

A successful design begins at the very early master planning stage, and should involve an architect in the concept’s initial development. Master plan design efforts must account for flexibility, because the variety of users can change depending on the day, the time of day, the season, and many other factors.

One area that cannot change is visitors’ safety and security. It must be maintained — not in the form of blatant reminders such as exposed cameras or armed security guards, but rather with open, observable environments where people feel comfortable.

The center must also have the ability to transform from day to night, with some tenants remaking themselves in the process. For example, a morning coffee and newspaper shop might become an afternoon deli and an evening Internet café.

Current or proposed adjacent facilities are also important. Sports arenas, stadiums, or higher education facilities can draw people through the center because of proximity or sympathetic use.

Potential obstacles

A number of challenges may crop up in the planning stage. Some of these and their resolutions may include:

• Regional market competition: This will naturally occur and needs to be evaluated. Market research of local trends and projections for future development can fill this need.

 • Targeting the wrong demographics and audience with the wrong mix of merchants: This should be resolved before it ever becomes an issue — by understanding the overall audience needs and developing a proactive way to fit into the community.

Woodbury’s Payson Village is a mixed-use development with 590,000 square feet of leaseable space in Payson, Utah. Rendering courtesy MHTN Architects / Woodbury Corporation

• Projects that cost more to build than can be supported by the ultimate uses: Determine the best way to construct a high quality development using realistic lease expectations based on a performance-based analysis of anticipated income.

• Poor access, inadequate parking, a complex circulation structure, lack of a secure environment: These situations can be avoided by involving a seasoned design team in the early planning stages. This ensures a design solution that meets the developer’s vision in a cohesive and well-developed plan.

From initial planning to grand opening, a development with elements that blend into a memorable experience — and have the flexibility to meet changing needs — will continue to draw the retailers and visitors starting with a ribbon cutting ceremony and continuing for decades to come. SCB

Doug Thimm, AIA, is vice president and director of the Resort and Mixed-Use Design Studio with MHTN Architects in Salt Lake City. He can be reached at doug.thimm@mhtn.com.