The Critic Speaks
One self-righteous, poorly educated, and cranky critic talks about planning and urban design in the vast sprawlscape of suburban California.
Well, my town of residence has just completed its long awaited (and I mean LONGGGGGG-awaited “Town Square” project. The project basically consists of two mid-sized commercial buildings fronting on a small paved plaza. A new city parking lot abuts the square to the rear.
Vacaville, California is a exurban city of about 100,000 people located an hour east of San Francisco (on a good traffic day, that is). The city is actually quite old, founded in the 1850s by Juan de Vaca (so Vacaville does not really mean “Cowtown” like the name suggests). The downtown area is organized around a somewhat random, broken street grid with a large park at the eastern end. Most of the building stock is post-war small town commercial, but there are some landmark Victorian buildings nearby. The downtown area is pretty intact, but remains somewhat “sleepy.” A quite nice residential neighborhood abuts downtown to the west, with the Civic Center located five blocks south and older commercial strip development and lower income neighborhoods to the east. Immediately north of downtown is rural countryside and semi-rural “estate” housing.
A few years back, the City decided it needed to jumpstart its somewhat moribund downtown. First, the City invested millions in a lovely creekside park complex with walkways, a waterfall, fountains, and new landscaping. The City sponsors a popular summer concert series in the new “Creekwalk.”
Second, the City decided to replace some existing substandard commercial buildings (we are not talking historic landmarks here-there was a used car lot and some concrete block 1950s strip mall type stuff in the heart of downtown). The Town Square project was born! A new library opened this year, the newly expanded Senior Center attracts a variety of events and groups, and new restaurants have opened in the downtown area. All of these uses complement Vacaville’s image of itself as a traditional “small town” place, even if much of the population lives in standard (i.e., dreadful) tract home suburbia and commutes to distant job centers.
But back to the LONGGGGGG-awaited “Town Square” project. The project basically consists of two mid-sized two-story commercial buildings fronting on a small paved plaza. A new city parking lot abuts the square to the rear. The two story elevations are designed in an interesting (if indifferently executed) Tuscan vernacular that is different than standard California Pomo “Mediterranean” design. This reflects the heritage of the local Adieggo family who sponsored the project.
The project is certainly a new amenity for the City of Vacaville. Once the remaining ground-floor retail/restaurant spaces are filled, there is some potential for a lively new space. However, why did the City get so many design details so wrong? Do we no longer know how to design or develop attractive squares and plazas (or at least, PUBLIC ones. Mall designers seem to have more of a touch.).
Some of the problems seem related to program. Rather than enclosing the square with buildings space, the City “needed” more parking downtown. Thus, one end of the square is not bounded by a fine, complementary building but by a parking lot.
Similarly, the new branch library/office building is offset from the plaza. The building also features an awkward postmodernist design that not only doesn’t complement the Italian architecture of the plaza project itself but also doesn’t help enclose the space. The lovely creekside location is a missed opportunity-there are nice windows but no outdoor seating areas associated with the library overlooking the creek. There is no comfortable way fro a pedestrian to walk from the library to the downtown plaza or Main Street.
My other complaints are relatively minor-but details matter. First, the new Town Clock. Lovely idea. But why a metal structure and not a campanile that complements the Italian design of the plaza and the buildings? Also: did they buy the clock faces for $5.99 at WalMart? And, what’s with the goofy plastic ball on top of the clock?
Second: the Plaza’s design uses ersatz “nature” in the heart of the city. Now, remember that less than a block to the east is a quite nice landscaped park with a large, all-season creek with walkways and waterfalls and trees. Why did the Town Square designers have to create a cutesy FAKE CREEK in the new, supposedly more urban “Town Square” project? (We are talking babbling brook and boulders here). It’s goofy-why not a traditional (or even modern) fountain that can be more easily seen from the street, that has some presence in the urban space?
Even worse: most of the plaza is paved with nice beige paving stones befitting an “Italianate” design. A very nice surface that’s much better than the too common “stamped concrete” one sees in new public design. However, the designer left several of the stones out, with tamped-down decomposed granite laid out in a somewhat random pattern. This purportedly represents a “dry river” running through the plaza. Nobody understands this “idea” until it is explained to them-and the plaza simply looks incomplete. One wonders how decomposed granite surfaces will interact with the pavement-will there be tripping hazards and-lawsuits? One neighbor observed a small child riding her bike on the plaza (a no-no, but it happens). The kid hit the soft dg, and whomp, down she went.
Design quibbles aside, the biggest measurement for success of the Town Square project will be activity levels. Unfortunately, the ground-floor retail space has not yet been leased (except for a popular bakery/café). Once these spaces are occupied, the outdoor seating areas in place, and visible humanity using the space, the design details won’t matter so much anymore.
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