In mid-July off the beaten path at the Georgetown crossroads of Redding and Wilton, crews poured concrete for new sidewalks, between a little restaurant row and the red brick hulk of the old Gilbert & Bennett mill building, which fronts a proposed village.
Build a sidewalk and they will come, say some.
At a Hartford forum sponsored by the Partnership for Strong Communities, a succession of planners highlighted the key role modest walkways played in the ultimate success of their projects, ranging from a brackish Madison pond with broken-down school buses buried in its muck to lower Manhattan”™s Battery Park City anchored by its esplanade along the Hudson River.
In between are myriad small examples of success in Fairfield County ”“ each one owing its heritage to New England”™s traditional town greens, according to Stanton Eckstut, architect and senior principal at the New York City-based EE&K unit of Perkins Eastman, who led the development of Battery Park City and who said the town-green concept infuses itself into many of EE&K”™s projects across the nation.
“The public space is about quality, not quantity,” Eckstut said. “This esplanade is only 70 feet wide. ”¦ It is now one of 13 monuments, according to The New York Times, in New York City (with) the Brooklyn Bridge, Central Park and all ”“ 70 feet. So think quality, not quantity.
“If we could (develop) one Main Street, like (in) every Connecticut town and one town green ”“ we”™d be doing great,” Eckstut said. “That”™s all we”™re trying to achieve in all these developments and you are the people who have all these in place.”
The Hartford-based Connecticut Main Street Center, which last month hired former Norwalk project manager Jack Burritt as its downtown development director, adheres to a similar strategy for its 60-some municipal members. In the recession-muddled stretch between the summers of 2007 and 2010 and June 2010, the organization”™s “designated Main Street programs” saw an 18 percent net increase in jobs and a 62 percent increase in private investment in their downtowns.
Of course, it does not always work ”“ in the early 1970s, New London converted its downtown State Street into the cobblestone “Captain”™s Walk” closed to traffic. The pedestrian mall failed to find favor as a downtown magnet and within two decades the city scuttled the idea and reopened it to vehicle traffic.
Cars have their place in any successful downtown project, according to Robert Lane, a senior fellow with the New York City-based Regional Planning Association, who highlighted the redevelopment of the Glenbrook and Springdale neighborhoods of Stamford as examples of projects with a flexible development plan that made for a more successful project ”“ and one that includes cars.
If cars have a place downtown, however, planners agree that they cannot be the focus ”“ and for that approach to succeed, the stations and experience must be a draw. Connecticut is plowing billions of dollars into Metro-North, a “CTfastrak” rapid-bus service for Hartford and its western suburbs; and a proposed high-speed rail line from New Haven to Springfield, Mass.
“We need to make the CTfastrak work,” said Ben Barnes, secretary of the Connecticut Office of Policy and Management and a Stratford resident. “I”™ve got to convince all my colleagues around the office who live in West Hartford that it”™s okay to take the bus to work ”¦ Some of them have been resistant, I will tell you.”
Eckstut suggested commuter resistance to mass transit is usually more a function of distaste with available facilities and their environment, rather than the thought of leaving cars behind.
“Everywhere we go in America, transit is a second-class experience ”“ a second-class market,” Eckstut said. “First-class drive; second-class take buses. The idea is, ”˜No, no. We”™re going to transform the image, the standard, the marketing. We”™re going to make it a great public place.”™”
If building quality transit facilities costs more upfront, Eckstut said the investment pays for itself, both in generating activity and in long-term maintenance costs. He said the most important element of the EE&K-designed Gateway Center intermodal transit center in Los Angeles is a lack of concrete, with stone, brick and bronze elevating both the aesthetics and ability of the station to hold up to the wear and tear of the ages.
“It”™s meant to last forever and it”™s also meant to be a first-rate marketing address for riders to have the best possible experience, and for development to be attracted here,” Eckstut said. “The federal government went along with our value engineering because we demonstrated it would cost less money over 30 years if we built in a way that did not have concrete and we did not constantly have to maintain, tear it apart, rip it up, rebuild, etc.”
“Typically all of the economics here are about creating value,” Eckstut added. “In all our large projects ”¦ I”™ve never seen money be the determinant of what to do or not to do. ”¦ You can have great visions but they have to be pragmatic visions, otherwise that”™s where people lose interest right away and you lose your credibility.”
Madison architect Duo Dickinson noted it”™s not always easy to establish credibility up front. He was behind Madison”™s efforts a quarter-century ago to recreate its downtown around a neglected pond, a process that began with a $10,000 challenge to a quartet of landscape designers to come up with the best option.
The contest was won by a predecessor company to what today is Devore Associates in Fairfield; while its initial ideas were not implemented, Dickinson said the exercise helped Madison into a mode of taking a fresh look at the forgotten pond, resulting in first a walkway that ultimately encouraged additional development and in time, a new train station (over the years, the walkway itself has fallen into disrepair for lack of dedicated funding for upkeep).
Regional Planning Association”™s Lane said towns should invest upfront on a single focal point ”“ done right, private investment will follow.
“First of all, fix up the public ”˜realm,”™” Lane said. “Before you get to the stage where you sort of figure out all the kinds of buildings you want to do ”¦ try to get rid of the utilities (wires) or at least rationalize them; and then build great sidewalks.
“Then over time you can begin to promote with the right kind of zoning the sort of in-fill development that will want to follow this great public realm,” Lane added, describing the process of developing vacant or underused parcels within existing urban areas that are already largely developed. “Count on that for being the driver.”
