THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, September 19, 1996 TAG: 9609190396
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A13 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY STEPHANIE STOUGHTON, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: 80 lines
Responding to criticism over the suburban, ``big-block'' design of MacArthur Center, the mall's developers Wednesday presented sketches of a shopping center they say will blend in better with the city's downtown.
The basic layout is the same, but designers have developed the mall's exterior to match the flavor of surrounding historical buildings, offices and the Granby commercial district.
In the latest drawings, windows have replaced blank brick walls. They've drawn restaurants, with tables outside, spilling onto Monticello Avenue. Architecture on City Hall Avenue and Freemason Street meshes with buildings like the MacArthur Memorial and Moses Myers House.
``There you see, MacArthur Center . . . connected to downtown,'' city design consultant Ray Gindroz told residents, merchants and others who packed a theater at Nauticus to hear plans for the mall.
The new design makes some concessions to critics of the original plan. But some who attended Wednesday's presentation said the changes don't go far enough.
The $300 million upscale mall may look pretty from the outside, but it still doesn't tie in with other downtown attractions, said David Levy, a Navy architect and Norfolk resident who helped develop an alternative design.
``They've ignored the important issues,'' Levy said after the presentation. ``The reality is that it would be better if it was ugly and connected better.''
Levy and some other architects objected to the original design of MacArthur Center, saying it looked bland from the outside, didn't appeal to pedestrians and didn't invigorate the city's downtown.
They developed a new layout, with storefronts on all four streets surrounding the mall. Walkways inside the mall would be extensions of the streets, under the proposed alternative.
The Taubman Co., the mall developer, made several changes responding to concerns. But, in the end, the design would have to ``blend retail needs with the urban fabric of the city,'' said John Simon, senior vice president of development for Bloomfield Hills, Mich.-based Taubman.
The developer said it sometimes came down to the basic functions of a mall: You have to make it easy for traffic to get to the mall; you have to have parking; and you have to ensure that retailers inside can make money.
Taubman and the city's design consultant presented sketches of the mall - the most detailed yet - before the Downtown Norfolk Council and others. The drawings, which aren't etched in stone, have been developed over several years.
The Norfolk Design Review Committee has worked with Dillards and Nordstrom - the two anchoring department stores. Both have agreed to meld with the overall mall design, said Robin Ingram, a committee member.
Wednesday afternoon, in a joint meeting between the design committee and the city's Planning Commission, a Dillards architect presented designs for its store that were more in line with the downtown architecture.
``He said that this was the first time that they had ever been involved in a process like this, where a city has its own interest,'' Ingram said. ``Usually, they're (building) in a field, not in a heart of a city.''
City Councilman Mason Andrews said the latest design should strengthen the Granby area, which is beginning to revitalize with new additions like Tidewater Community College's downtown Norfolk campus. The new sketches show a patio overlooking Monticello Avenue and restaurant tables outside.
Plans also call for movie theaters to be built on the Granby side.
Construction on MacArthur Center, which will cover eight blocks, is scheduled to begin in January and finish up from the fall of 1998 to the spring of 1999.
So far, the three-story mall has two anchoring department stores: Little Rock, Ark.-based Dillards and Seattle's Nordstrom. After the meeting, Simon indicated that Taubman might be close to luring a potential third anchor. But he would not provide details. ILLUSTRATION: Photo
John Simon
Drawings
The latest proposals for MacArthur Center - seen from Monticello
Ave. and Market Street, above, and Monticello, left - aim to match
the mall's architecture with the rest of the district, while
including restaurants with tables outside and replacing walls with
windows. by CNB