On Retail Streets
Q: How do you define a great retail street?
A: It has great retailers on it.
Happy Dry (Martini) January! It’s too late to say Happy New Year so maybe Happy Lunar New Year will suffice. Here in Atlanta we had a touch of snow and of course now it’s 60. We mourned the passing of the wonderful man— and longtime Braves fan— Jimmy Carter. And we also lost Nathalie Dupree, who was fantastic. But school is back and lacrosse is starting and the world moves along.
Last month a nifty bit of research came from James Cook and his crew called City Retail 2025, outlining trends in High Street retail nodes. This, along with some interesting projects we’re working on, got me thinking. What makes a great retail street?
Yes I know a great retail street has great retailers on it. I’m not talking about merchandising. I’m asking: why? What is it about these streets that make them good locations for shopping and dining and gathering with friends?
Let’s find the answer by stealing a page from Brad Hargreave’s playbook. Let’s create our Ideal American High Street. The kind of place with local vinyl shops and au courant international brands. A unique place with small shops, big buzz, and sporty rents.
We know that the area has to have strong incomes and be densely populated. Counterintuitively, the street itself should be small. The ideal retail street is so narrow that you feel comfortable jay-walking. I made a handy dandy table of some of of the great American retail streets below, and while there are wide ones (South Congress, Michigan, Madison), I would argue that the best ones have the fewest lanes. So we’ll make ours three lanes wide: one lane each way and a turn lane in the middle. We want two-way traffic because —again with a few exceptions— one way streets make crummy retail.
In our middle turn lane, we could make it impromptu parking a la Abbot Kinney. But instead we’ll put tree planter medians where you don’t need to turn. There will still be opportunities for left turns because long medians without curb breaks are almost as bad for retail as one-way streets.
We might close the street once in a while for a festival, but we won’t make it pedestrian-only because pedestrian-only retail streets almost always fail. There are five that work (email me if you can guess). The rest are filled with dream-catcher stores and mimes. Federal intentionally designed streets for cars at Santana Row. Mastermind Rick Caruso can pull off pedestrian streets, but the rest of us can’t.
So we’ll want street parking. At Revel this is another subject where we disagree with the conventional wisdom (with the comfort of being right): you don’t need a lot parking to make a great retail experience. Good parking cannot fix bad retail, but good retail finds a way with bad parking. We want street parking because a) we’re going to charge for it and make a lot of money and b) because parked cars make a nice buffer between patrons and drivers.
If you don’t believe me, just look at Madison Avenue. The highest retail rents in the US, it’s five lanes wide from top to bottom. In Midtown this is five lanes of traffic but above 63rd there is parallel parking and it just feels calmer and more inviting. Madison Ave also has bus lanes, but I’m not sure transit makes much difference. Bike lanes and bike parking are good. Scooters are here to stay so we’ll make room for them too.
Our street parking can be parallel, but angled parking is undefeated. On South Congress they have reverse-angled ones which can be a little tricky, but still good.
To make sure the fun doesn’t escape, our street will be narrow and it won’t be longer than a mile. It shouldn’t be straight either. It needs bends and breaks. Some interesting corners and nooks and crannies. We want places to get lost.
Now let’s turn our attention to the sidewalks, another retail shibboleth in need of correcting: the width of the sidewalk isn’t that important. Have you been to SoHo? The sidewalks are about eight inches wide. In the Marais they might be narrower. You make do. A lot of retail design is guilty of Oversizing For Christmas and it feels dead the other 51 weeks. Sidewalks are near the top of that list.
We’ll make our clear walking zone no more than eight feet wide. Then we’ll put trees and light poles in the space between the walking zone and the curb. Don’t make giant planters because then you have to walk through them to jaywalk. The lighting will be important: both on poles and in trees. I feel like string lights have jumped the shark.
We want storefronts right up on the sidewalk but at the same time we need variety. We don’t want them recessed behind the building above but you can build an old-school covered walkway if it’s down south.Those buildings should be tall but not too tall. Three stories is about ideal (one of many reasons DC retail streets are so charming). Much more than five stories and it quickly goes from cozy to claustrophobic. We’ll limit tall buildings and we’ll encourage a few single story ones.
Another thing we don’t want is a big public park. Parks are fantastic but they are energy sinks. You never see great retail on a street across from a park because public parks make lousy retail neighbors. If they didn’t then all the retail on Newbury Street would have gone one block over to Commonwealth Ave.
I don’t want you to think I’m a raving anti-pedestrian lunatic, so we’ll have small gathering spots between buildings, and some really great pedestrian alleys that branch off our main road like they do in Melbourne and Vienna. These should be really tight. We’re looking for intimacy here.
In addition to little pedestrian commercial alleyways, the streets that branch off our High Street should have lots of single family homes. Small lots, tightly packed. Greenville Avenue in Dallas was my go-to street as an underage drinker. North Highland Avenue in Atlanta was the place in my 20s. Both are charming retail streets tucked into great single family residential neighborhoods.
Unfortunately we’re going to need more shoppers than those homes will supply, so our street will be located in a city with lots of tourists. Tourists shop when the rest of us have things to do. Why are 12th South Nashville retail rents double or triple those of West Midtown Atlanta? Tourists. If we want big rents we need patrons all week.
Tourists love unique places and unique places have lots of old buildings. These can be warehouses but can also just be old commercial buildings. Obviously we’ll want restaurants. Our sidewalks are narrow so we will need additional space for patios. There are a few ways to pull that off but maybe we’ll put the restaurants in old houses and gas stations and use the former front yards and drive lanes for patios.
And last but not least: of course there will be retail on both sides of our street. One-sided retail is a grocery store parking lot. But retail on both sides is charm and delight.
What We’re Working On. We’ve added to our in-house design team. Lindsay Ware has been handling signs and branding for a while. Now she is joined by Julia Petiprin, who in addition to being a top retail designer also happens to own two of the best bars in Ohio. You bring the building AOR, we’ll bring the street-level retail fun: storefronts, signage, FF+E, you name it. Please let us know how we can help.
A Short Guide to New Orleans. I hope many of you are headed there for the Super Bowl or for Mardi Gras. Please don’t let the recent awful events dissuade you: New Orleans is one of the Must Visits. I’ve been going since I was a child. I even took my then-girlfriend there to propose. Below are some spots I’ve loved and hope you will also.
Stay
The Columns in Uptown is really shines after its 2019 stem-to-stern renovation. And the patio can’t beat.
Hotel Peter & Paul is a radical spot over in Bywater.
Hotel Montelone. A bastion of civility in the French Quarter for a century (and yes: the Carousel Bar)
Eat (Old School)
I took my new fiancé to Arnaud’s 22 years ago and it remains a special place. Their French 75 bar is also great.
Felix’s. Go to the stand-up oyster bar and get a dozen Char-Grilled. It will change your life.
Franky & Johnny’s. Most folks rave about Po Boys at Domilise’s (rightfully) but F+J is where it's at.
Eat (New School)
Turkey & The Wolf. The best sandwiches in America from UVa alum Mason Hereford.
Saba. Alon Shana lost his eponymous joint to partners and opened this one (it’s better).
The Bell from Revel-favorite restaurateur Brooks Reitz just opened. We’ll let you know what we think.
Drinking & Dancing
Rebirth used to do a Tuesday night show at the Maple Leaf but now they call Zony Mash Beer Project home.
Really Really Nice Wines is delightful in Bywater
Rock N Bowl moved but it’s still an American institution.
Snake & Jakes Christmas Club Lounge cannot be adequately described
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For those new here, I run a retail development and consulting shop in Atlanta and I write semi-regularly about commercial real estate. If you have a retail project that could use a little retail creative thinking, we would love to hear from you.
-Geo