Another interesting aspect of the photos is that they are all chock full of pedestrians. If it so bad, why are all these people here? As to who shops there, well the people in the photos do and from what I hear a lot of others too. They do walk there from the dense surrounding neighborhood. Darth Vader may live nearby, I don’t know.

Does anyone remember the wretched, filthy market that was there before? The market that was the subject of a law suit the City lost? No one walked there. It was unsafe and dirty.

To attract the businesses that are there the developer had to provide more parking than is required by zoning. In fact they had to get special permission to build the parking. One could find the approvals for the project on the City’s website, if one were inclined to do research.

There should be a tram service between the street and the elevator in the parking lot to ferry people into the “maul” entrance. That way the pedestrians can navigate more safely through the parking garage.

Wow, what an assault on those with two feet.

Cars are big and highly visible, and impossible to forget when you’re planning for a big box mall. They advocate for themselves. Pedestrians are small and they don’t make a lot of noise. I think that explains how a five-story garage with 2,332 mostly unused parking spaces hulks in the middle of this retail project, while a very useful pedestrian connection is actively thwarted.

Thanks for the useful information about the walk, Vnm, but I disagree with you about the reason. I think it’s because to the developers and to the Bronx elites, drivers are “us,” and pedestrians don’t matter.

The shortest walk is 750 feet. It involves walking through:

A) What was a 296-space parking lot formerly known as Yankee Stadium Parking Lot 13D but is now part of the Gateway Center Mall footprint and is the site of a planned 250-room hotel that would have 225 parking spaces.
B) The unloading bay for 18-wheelers bound for Target and Home Depot.
C) Two chain link fences with functional gates on either side of the parking lot.

I made this uninviting walk today because besides being an entrance for the train station, the walkway serves as an overpass connecting the mall to the nearby community. The chain link fence closest to the station was locked. I climbed over the fence easily enough because I didn’t have any bags with me. However, two people behind me were carrying a bunch of stuff, and they turned around to walk back through the parking lot. After I got through the station I saw a woman pulling a shopping cart toward the walkway and figured she was in for a frustrating experience.

Cars are big and highly visible, and impossible to forget when you’re planning for a big box mall. They advocate for themselves. Pedestrians are small and they don’t make a lot of noise. I think that explains how a five-story garage with 2,332 mostly unused parking spaces hulks in the middle of this retail project, while a very useful pedestrian connection is actively thwarted.

The person who is supposed to be protecting us from crap like this and sweating the details on stuff like pedestrian access and not just viewing projects in Microsoft Exel is AMANDA BURDEN.

She certainly has some responsibility, but ultimately it’s up to the Mayor to give Burden – or someone – the mission to ensure that these EDC-sponsored projects meet some minimum standard of livability, and the backing so that development people like Lieber and Pinsky will listen to her.

Bloomberg clearly hasn’t done this, which means that he thinks of development projects in spreadsheet terms. This would be enough to get me to vote against him on Tuesday, except that all evidence suggests Thompson would be worse on this issue.

Right, youor I would be taking the subway; Amanda Burden doesn’t strike me as a straphanger, especially given city planning’s failure to address ridiculous minimum parking requirements.

Who shops here, Darth Vader?

Do they have penne alla arrabiata?

Gateway does remind me a bit of DC USA.

In DC USA, the retailers was legally bound to set aside the parking.

Though, there’s a huge difference between DC USA and Gateway:

DC USA is a resounding success and is well integrated into the neighborhood and the Metro. That said, the underground parking is an abject total waste, and even though that parking lot is a money loser and is at only like 25% capacity, it stills causes massive traffic jams at 14th and Park.

I wonder, and I just throw this out there as a consideration, but, I wonder to what extent the Class and Socioeconomic status had to do with Gateway’s f-ed up development.

The preservation program at Columbia did a great study of this area with a design charette when it was still the Bronx Terminal Market, prior to the Related development project. It was a great design that made use of existing structures and kept the site pedestrian oriented, which just makes it that much sadder for me to see what has actually happened here. It could’ve been a really creative project and instead it’s poorly conceived and generic.

That’s actually an awesome idea of dealing with River Plaza. The amazing view really is wasted on the parking lot! You could do a lot more with that space overlooking the water.

At least River Plaza is oriented to the street more than this thing. If they were mandated to provide parking they did it in the most tasteful way possible.

http://greatergreaterwashington.org/blogposts.cgi?filter=tag&label=DC+USA

Despite its flaws (retail-only uses, over-parking, bland architecture) at least DC USA is pedestrian friendly. The Gateway Center’s pedestrian provisions look downright hostile.