Blotting out the by-line.

Keeping the theme of gently altered signs, I offer a follow-up on the “Huge Condos” blog post from two months ago. Though not as funny as the advertisement in Dayton, this sign manifests a completely different kind of error in judgment pertaining to real estate. For developers with comparatively low dependency on equity partners, with a faith that the development will yield a desirable ROI, with a comfortable debt-to-equity ratio, and with the know-how to operate and maintain (or the capacity to forge a contract with a good management agency) over the ensuing years, it is likely that they will not be as eager to dispose of the property. In other words, the developers will retain title as the property is leased and occupied.

But what if business fortunes take a turn for the worse and they change their minds? In both good and bad economic climates, properties change hands, businesses fold or consolidate. The notion that a single entity will ever own a parcel in perpetuity is farfetched, which makes the decision displayed on this “cornerstone” plaque at a lifestyle center just outside of Montgomery, Alabama all the more bizarre:

Apparently two firms named Alfa and Jim Wilson & Associates, Inc. developed The Shoppes at East Chase. But they also had a bigger role in the past.

Spraypainted in a somewhat concealing black is the word “owner”, suggesting that this is no longer the case. One or both companies have divested themselves of the ownership role, and someone (the new owner presumably) took the most efficient approach possible to show it. But this action raises two further questions. First of all, why did the owner opt for such a chintzy method of indicating this? Up close, it’s not even effective: anyone with remotely decent vision can see the “owner” marginally obscured through black paint. Is it really that expensive to buy a new plaque? Wouldn’t it be worth it to clarify the key players in the development and management of this lifestyle center?

Second, and more importantly, wouldn’t the new owner (the Australian company Centro apparently) want to draw more attention to his or her name? This shopping node, while nowhere near as smartly designed as some new lifestyle centers in comparable southern state capitals such as Baton Rouge or Jackson (a topic I hope to explore at length in the future), still fits the mold for the retail typology that is most popular and successful these days. East Chase itself seems to be doing well enough, poor economy notwithstanding. At the time of my visit in the summer of 2010, it was probably 85 to 90% occupied. And it’s clearly the retail node in metro Montgomery with the healthiest potential. It sits squarely outside the city limits, in the eastern fringe which seems to be absorbing most of the suburban out-migration. Compare this to the more conventional, purely enclosed Eastdale Mall:

This mall, about two miles to the west and on the edge of the city limits, is doing fine from a superficial glance on a bustling Saturday night. All the department stores were occupied and most of the inline stores were filled as well. But many of the most lucrative tenants—middle to highbrow names like Hollister, Banana Republic, and Talbott’s—all fled the larger Eastdale Mall, presumably around 2002 when East Chase opened. The replacements at the older Eastdale are predominantly mom and pop stores, not the sort of thing a major mall seeks in order to ensure steady foot traffic. I’d be very surprised if, 16 months since taking these photos, the Eastdale Mall hasn’t demonstrated more visible signs of decline. Meanwhile, the next highest concentration of retail square footage in the Montgomery metro area is the Montgomery Mall, on the south side of town in the city limits.

And it’s dead, my friend.

Completely closed. It still appears well-maintained: no graffiti and very little litter, the landscaping is reasonably groomed, and the pavement on the parking lot is not too pockmarked yet. But this could be merely because the Montgomery Mall hasn’t been closed for long, and the shift of retail energy from within the city limits to the eastern suburbs is a gradual process.

But something about that palimpsest plaque at The Shoppes at East Chase is troubling. Perhaps it, too, was a temporary solution while a new sign was on order; I just happened to catch the man behind the curtain at the inopportune time. If not, though, and the spraypainted owner is there to stay, then it may be that something is amiss in terms the operations at this most promising of Montgomery’s retail nodes. After all, it struck me as a bit surprising that one of their big-box, “category killer” stores was vacant.

I presume this to have been a Staples, which was not a business known for shuttering a large number of its stores in 2010. The red of the company’s trademark façade may be the akin to the color of the herring I’m following, but the telltale signs of a struggling retail environment in an otherwise healthy metro (Montgomery is unquestionably the most prosperous area in Alabama’s largely impoverished Black Belt region) are the stuff that retail experts and developers use to determine where future expansion should take place. It could be that the nine-year-old East Chase is already past its prime, and another retail hub is in the works, even further out in the decentralized eastern suburbs. Maybe the developer would have enough confidence to hang on to the property a bit longer…or at least find a more adaptable plaque for display.

Let the feet do the wayfinding.

Among the quietest, most modest recent additions to the American landscape are aids for the visually impaired. With little fanfare, they have proliferated in the past decade; perhaps it is to be expected that this has happened discreetly, since the target constituent cannot see them. In an increasing number of downtowns, one hears a voice or—more often than not—a “chirping” sound upon crossing at an intersection when a “Walk” sign flashes. This cue provides an auditory signal to cross for those who cannot discern the flashing signs. In some cases, these enhanced signals also provide a vibrotactile indicator when pressing the button to cue the pedestrian crossing. It will no doubt take many years before they become status quo. At this point, it appears that one is most likely to encounter the auditory crossing signals in places that are both pedestrian oriented and (most importantly) wealthy, since this process usually requires a complete replacement of the signals, rather than simply adding the chirping device. In short, it costs the government money.

However, another aid for blind pedestrians is popping up everywhere, from the big cities to the remotest towns.
If you are as clueless as I was until about two years ago, you might have thought these were intended to give traction to wheelchairs as they make their way up the ramp to the sidewalk. Not so. They are Tactile Walking Surface Indicators, detectable warnings, truncated domes, tactile paving—they have a number of names. I’ve mentioned them briefly in a blog article about complete streets for pedestrians. Their fundamental goal is to alert to the blind and visually impaired when they are about to leave a sidewalk and enter a street or a driveway in which cars may pass. They’ve been required since the passage of the 1991 Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), but were soon suspended so the Department of Justice could assess their effectiveness. One environment that did not receive the exemption were subway and train platforms, which now employ these devices across the country to warn blind transit users when they are at the edge of the platform where the train may approach. Only in 2001 did the Department of Justice end the suspension, and since that point, public works departments have been installing them aggressively. They usually look like the one above, or maybe curved like this one in Indiana:
Typically they are made of rubber, and my observations suggest that they are usually red in color in the northern states, and yellow in the southern. Sometimes they’re made of limestone. I’m not sure why, but the top-most photo is clearly an exception to the color rule—it’s red and it’s from Mobile, Alabama.

Alabama cities also provide some interesting examples of how these Tactile Walking Surface Indicators have evolved over the years. The one below in Montgomery seems to be an older model—I started noticing it long before the truncated domes, or “bumps” as we humans might call them.
Look familiar? It consists of small parallel “valleys” carved in the concrete. But I am pretty confident the design has been retired, because it’s simply not that detectable for those who don’t walk around downtown in their bare feet. A visually impaired person might spot it with the white cane, but not easily, and particularly not if it has been heavily worn down.

Here’s another model from Mobile that I had never seen before:
It’s sort of the inverse of the previous model, but instead of valleys it provides parallel raised concrete “ridges”.

My guess is this tactile paving proved unpopular from the beginning because it is almost too obtrusive. It could prove a tripping hazard for non-disabled persons, as well as a major source of discomfort for someone negotiating the ramp in a wheelchair. I personally have never seen this anywhere else before; if cities ever introduced them, most have probably been removed and destroyed long ago.

This subtle transformation manifests the continued trial-and-error approach to integrating devices that aid the disabled. Rarely have they proven controversial, particularly the tactile paving that uses the raised bumps, most likely because it isn’t terribly costly to install. Audible signals, on the other hand, have raised some ire—whether because the sound is so loud it keeps the neighborhood up at night or because of deferred maintenance due to tight municipal budgets. The second of the two hyperlinks from the previous sentence elicits a particularly interesting debate on how far the public sector must stretch its dollars to try to accommodate everyone. After all, even with the tactile paving, we in the US have not begun to approach the level of sophistication which these devices have achieved in Japan, where entire urban paths guide the blind to safety (and where this invention originated). The accommodation of disabilities doesn’t always mesh well with American’s teleological nature; in all likelihood we will never achieve truly universal design, since some innovator will identify a heretofore unrecognized problem by unveiling—and patenting—a solution. Someday even the Japanese technique will become obsolete. But those who grumble that these things cost the taxpayers should blindfold themselves for a day; it can only help to remind them of the infinite complexity behind the pursuit of public good.