Posted by To break up the ride home from our short vacation in Toronto last week, my wife and I stopped at an outlet mall. This outdoor discount shopping center is one of the few I tolerate, mostly because I really enjoy the design of this retail destination. If you enjoy sustainable transportation, densely packed infrastructure, community squares, unique spaces for children, beautification and other urban amenities, this is the photos below will likely connect with you:
While not perfect, and lacking any mixed use space, the elements of modern new urbanistic community design is there. An attempt at bike infrastructure, somewhat attractive “public” spaces, a small park for children, and wide, inviting walkways densely lined with retail options make you feel like you’re in a place of thoughtful design. Visually, all the elements are there. Add some housing, some vertical builds, and connect to transit, and you have a bustling mixed-use, new urban center akin to Cul De Sac in Mesa, Arizona.
Sadly, as you walk out of the entrance to the mall and into the parking lot, you are reminded that these amenities are imposters, disconnected from anything remotely sustainable or community-inducing.
That’s a massive parking lot, separating the mall from the Queen Elizabeth Way (QEW) expressway. Just East of St. Catherines, the mall is fed and surrounded by roads that lack transit service and are far from bike friendly.
It’s always nice to see progressive design. But for good design to work, it needs to be sustainably connected to other areas of thoughtful community. Otherwise, it’s simply a superficial island posing as sustainable and attractive space.
Ironically, malls have always succeeded in doing this. Fountains, ficus trees, abundant seating, food courts, and skylights pierced by sunshine have traditionally tricked the senses into believing that this isn’t an exclusive retail space surrounded by an endless sea of parking, encircled by traffic, concrete and road noise. This outlet mall simply adopts the modern version of this illusion, and judging by the hundreds of people there, shoppers are none the wiser.
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