Increasingly, municipalities are embarrassed that these ugly, traffic-clogged corridors define their civic identities. The strip is usually the first thing visitors see when driving through a suburban town; often, it is the only thing they see. The good news is that it's possible to undo the damage. Strips, like shopping malls, can be converted into walkable places with lots of character. Here's the bad news: It will take a long, long time.
As Lakewood, Colorado, builds its new downtown, it is also re- planning the entire 4-mile artery that connects to the Villa Italia mall site. A draft plan calls for converting busy Alameda Avenue, with its strip shopping centers and huge parking lots, into a "Grand Parkway to the Mountains." Landscaping would be upgraded and made consistent along the stretch. New side lanes would create on-street parking and improve access for bicycles and pedestrians. And as redevelopment occurs over time, new buildings would sit right along the sidewalk just as they do on Main Streets. There would still be plenty of parking, but it will go behind rather than in front of the buildings.
Most important, Lakewood is no longer thinking of the strip as a strip. Instead, planners envision a series of dense neighborhood centers along Alameda. They would be located at major intersections, roughly half a mile apart. "It's all about establishing character," says George Valuck, who heads a group representing businesses along the corridor. "When you enter Lakewood along Alameda Avenue, we want you to feel like you've arrived somewhere."
For local officials, strips may prove to be an even bigger redevelopment challenge than a dead or dying mall. You can't demolish a miles-long strip and start over the way you can with a mall site. And whereas malls typically have one owner, strips can have dozens. Some own large chunks of land while others own very narrow slivers-- and all of them want their own "curb cuts" where drivers pull off the main road and into their parking lots. "It's the toughest planning job of all," says the Lakota Group's John LaMotte, who has worked on several suburban corridor plans. "Strip businesses work independently like cowboys on the range. They treat their driveways and curb cuts like gold and don't want to link up with anybody."
Michael Beyard, a senior fellow at the Urban Land Institute, offers one solution: Pare back the amount of land zoned for retail. Most strips are zoned for far more retail than their communities need. This makes it especially easy for big-box retailers to ditch one site for another just down the road. Rezoning for a mix of uses and denser development will help transform strips from Anywhere to Somewhere-- gradually. "It took us 50 years to get where we are today with these corridors and it will take us 50 years to solve the problem," Beyard says. "But we have to get started now, because if we don't, the problem will simply get worse."
