"The Americana at Brand"

NPR's Day to Day today reported on a new development in Southern California's Glendale - The Americana at Brand.  This luxury lifestyle development clusters a number of up-to-4 story buildings around a park green, with streets and curbs and a square and some clock towers - and a Cheesecake Factory and every single international chain boutique store you could imagine, with 100 condominiums and 238 apartments.

This project resembles but ain't Las Vegas' troubled Sullivan Square project, which would cluster a number of 20-something story mixed-use buildings around a park, with real streets and curbs and a square and clocks... on a superblock at the corner of the freeway and a suburban mega-avenue.

This project also resembles but ain't this blog's suggestion for Park Lane Mall's impending redevelopment.  They all have their similarities, of course - the primary similarity being their postmodern financing and construction scheme.  And it resembles but ain't The District at Victorian Square - the now canceled Sparks redevelopment project.

This is a very interesting report.  A key quote extracted from the broadcast, by project backer Rick Caruso:

"You can criticize it, and say, 'Based on the books, you shouldn't do this' — I don't know what book that would be"

- Rick Caruso, Developer, The Americana at Brand

What book would it be?  Well, anything by Jane Jacobs would be a great place to start - but happily, what Jacobs was arguing against is no longer common in the world of urban development.  Jacobs was a hard-scrabble community organizer in New York City's Greenwich Village fighting against Robert Moses' road compulsion - specifically, a project to demolish most of Greenwich Village and surrounding neighborhoods so they could build a freeway across Lower Manhattan - which would allow larger towers, presumably surrounded by parks and parking lots - to survive on the island.  The proposal was to replace the lost residential use with yet more towers surrounded by parks and parking lots - across town from the new commercial and retail uses.

Jacobs was a fierce critic of single-use zoning.  She was a fierce critic of projects which overwhelmingly rely on a single architectural metaphor.  She was a staunch proponent of a diverse building line with a diverse range of building heights and sidewalk setbacks - assuming they all had pedestrian fronting along the sidewalk.  Her little book, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, is a modern classic treatise of urban planning - written by an amateur.

In the broadcast segment of this story, Caruso (I'm paraphrasing) said that the people who opposed this project based on what "the books" say are also people who only studied but never did any real urban planning - an excellent zinger and a point I would make about Jacobs' amateurism.  There is only one class of urban planning professional - those who are actually involved in the business of creating new urban spaces or redefining existing urban spaces - those who do the nitty-gritty, on the ground work, of building whole new complex places.

Yet I would contend here, that even Caruso is taking an amateur's advice:  The Americana is to feature a diverse mixture of building styles and heights and is not single use and is directly adjacent to other dense, urban development such as old downtown Glendale and the more recent Glendale Galleria.

Comments

[Lyn]

Thank you for bringing this gorgeous oasis in my neighborhood!!!

[Melanie]

One of the reasons so many people opposed the greedy Mr. Caruso was that he 'forgot' somehow in his beautiful urban multi-million dollar schematic to allow for adequate parking. The parking situation in downtown Glendale is already challenging with downtown destinations that include: the mallS (yes, capital S) that already existed adjacent, across the street and next door to his behemoth. Really? He figured he'd just ride on the coattails of the existing mall and try to get those 'exclusive' retail stores to sign up. Oh and also buy off city hall to make it happen. Greed gone wild.

[Ron]

Rick Caruso took a low value property (as far as income to the city of glendale) and built a high dollar facility designed to attract affluent shoppers into Glendale.

Is it working? I live in The Residences at Americana and I see the shopping crowd all the time. Yes. It's working.

An ironic thing for me is this: I've lived in Reno for the past 20 years and I don't think Reno could support such a high end development. The one on the South end of Reno (the name escapes me at the moment) is nice but not as high-end as The Americana. The Beverly Hills crowd now has a reason to go on a 'road trip' to Glendale.

As for the parking - there is ample parking in the 6 story garage and in the underground valet parking facility.

As for the assertion that he's riding on the coattails of the existing mall - The Glendale Galleria is busier than ever. The addition of the Americana next door has given them an increase in traffic too.

[Ken]

Ron - great comment. I would like to say one thing with regard to your comment however about Reno not being able to support such a high end development as the Americana. Our whole model of development is pretty messed up if we believe that an attractive urban space, essentially a new neighborhood, can only be built in an urban area if the tenants and customers for the thing are going to be upscale. We need to turn that model on its head. For too long, our urban spaces have been gutted and replaced with strip malls and single use shopping centers - downmarket, upmarket and everywhere in between. I think it's ridiculous that the only way we could consider building a new neighborhood to replace an old shopping mall is if the new neighborhood was upscale. Based on that model, what we're getting is a new shopping center, essentially a strip mall, and in no hurry at that. Boo.