If you question the value of design in urban planning, take
a spin through Irondequoit. That
northeastern MonroeCounty
suburb offers some of the area’s best examples of what happens in the absence
of a master plan. The result, say urban planners, is mass development without
cohesion.
It’s the absence of that synergy that best characterizes
sprawl: a string of missed opportunities to not only facilitate home, work, and
play, but to uplift the spirit in the process. Last week, the RochesterRegionalCommunityDesignCenter
hosted “Design Matters 2,” a three-day conference on community revitalization.
The program focused on three Rochester
communities: Rochester’s downtown,
the city’s South Wedge neighborhood, and a proposed town center for Irondequoit.
Participants toured one of the three areas, heard discussions by planners from Chattanooga
and Pittsburgh, and took part in a
workshop to exchange ideas about the design challenges of the three areas.
A “town center” for Irondequoit
sounds like an oxymoron. There’s East Ridge Road,
with its barrage of cars and strip malls. There’s the odd little intersection
at Titus and Cooper, home to House of Guitars, certainly not an architectural
treasure, but one of the area’s best known landmarks. And, of course, there’s
Irondequoit Mall, the giant retail shopping center that later became the
community’s albatross.
But there’s also the other Irondequoit:
grand homes lining St. Paul, the
quaint lakeside neighborhood of Summerville, and the town’s good fortune of
having water on three sides.
After spending much of the ’80s and ’90s in a slump, Irondequoit
could be ready to shake its old image. This suburb by the sea has taken big
steps to make itself more appealing to developers by targeting five key areas
for redevelopment. In each, a design and engineering team surveyed residents,
business owners, and government officials and came up with a plan that includes
architectural standards and new zoning regulations. And the town board has
already approved the plan.
The vision for Seabreeze, one of the five target areas,
includes a 20-story condo-hotel-entertainment complex and a boat harbor: “a
world class experience,” predicts Town Supervisor David Schantz. “Our model,”
says Schantz, “is Niagara-on-the-Lake.”
The Titus-Cooper-Hudson target area, envisioned as the
future town center, currently includes a disjointed stretch of retail that
includes IrondequoitPlaza.
As a town center, the new zoning regulations would allow commercial,
recreational, residential, and public uses to “coexist in very creative ways,”
says Schantz. That vision had the team at Design Matters examining everything
from condos to a bistro-style remake of the plaza, to encourage fewer cars and
more foot traffic.
Schantz was a key participant in
the Design Matters 2 conference. In an interview later last week, Schantz
talked about the development of Irondequoit
— a town he says is poised to be the new gateway to the region. An edited
version of that conversation follows.
City: Can you explain what you mean by a “town
center” for Irondequoit?
Schantz: We have always had a loyal group of
residents who care about this community. Many of them have been here for a very
long time. And this is an interactive town. People get out and talk to one
another.
At the same time, we had become a community lacking a
vision. We had kind of a bad rap, and I don’t know, maybe we brought some of
that on ourselves. But we didn’t have a cheerleader. And that’s one of the
roles of the town supervisor.
There was also some instability. So we went about
identifying the areas for redevelopment that we thought would give the most
payback for our investment in time and resources. We identified fives areas:
the Seabreeze area, Irondequoit Mall, the Stutson-Summerville area near the
ferry, the Cooper-Titus-Hudson corridor, and Ridge Road, which is our only
commercial corridor.
As you know, we have very little industrial and little
commercial, and Ridge Road
had become such a mess. No vision, no architectural themes, just a hodgepodge
of different types of development. So we immediately went about establishing a
vision.
One of the major components of the job was to be a
cheerleader for the town, to begin to turn around that negative image. That was
around 1998. And the area has historically been very parochial, resistant to
change. When people come up with visionary ideas, the community sometimes right
away is going to say: Why would anyone come to Rochester?
Or: The weather is so bad. They will immediately find something wrong with that vision. One of our biggest impediments is the
negative attitude we have about ourselves.
So to better answer the question, the town center is not the
center of town. We see it as a center of community activities. It is the place
where people can get out of their car and feel they have arrived. We are trying
to create a people-friendly area where the businesses and the atmosphere and
experience are pleasing and uplifting to people. That’s a “town center.”
City:Was there ever a traditional downtown, a
main street or town center?
Schantz: Never. Irondequoit
was really several of these little centers. We had Seabreeze. There was
Summerville. The area of Cooper-Titus was a major center of activity, which is
densely populated with quite a bit of activity and a school, but it was
blighted. It is not appealing, and it stopped drawing people as a result. And
people didn’t think of it for any one thing in particular. Nothing came to
mind.
City: When you surveyed people, what do you think
they meant when they said they hope to see more small businesses like bakeries,
coffee shops, gifts shops, and so forth?
Schantz: That we want to feel closer and be
more connected. Our pace is so rapid today, and these small businesses are part
of an experience we want to have, where we get to talk to one another, and we
get to know the people around us just a little more. Technology is great, but
it has a way of pushing us farther away from one another.
City: Irondequoit covers such a huge swath of development. Do
you think a “town center” matters to people in Seabreeze?
Schantz: Yes, because these projects are all
interconnected. Every project relates to the other projects, so in a way, what we
are doing is weaving a fabric. We are remaking the town.
When you have a town that is put together with no planning
and no vision of what it wants to be, you end up with things happening by
chance. And these towns end up being a bunch of neighborhoods, not being very
people friendly, and they don’t work. You end up creating an environment that
is really detrimental to the human spirit and human life.
You know, you walk into Starbucks and it’s not about the
coffee, it’s about the experience. I went to Disneyland,
and I thought, What’s an old fart like me doing here? But you walk in the
gates, and it doesn’t matter if you’re 90 or 9: There’s something for everyone.
That experience doesn’t just happen by chance. It is very careful planning
around a vision. And that is what we are trying to do here.
City: Who would this town center serve? Only a
couple of nearby neighborhoods?
Schantz: It is this whole region of the state
of New York, because I predict
that what we are doing with the Port
of Rochester is going to change
everything. You’re going to see 1 to 2 million people coming through that port.
Not just Canadians, but people from all over the world.
We already get calls all the time from people using the Toronto
airport as the airport of choice for the northeastern half of the country,
because they are just so congested down there, and it is such a negative
experience. They are favoring Toronto
over Boston and New
York because it is so much easier.
I predict we’re going to have visitors for this entire region
from all over the world. And we’re the gateway to this whole region.
We have to keep the people who support these local
businesses, but we also have to draw from out of the area, too. We can’t do it
alone.
City: During the tour, some residents referred to
buildings that are not up to code and to some property owners who have not been
very cooperative. How will you address issues like that with some of your
veteran businesses — who have been there with you through the good and the
bad times — without creating barriers to your future plans?
Schantz: It in great part comes down to mutual
respect, and the plan we are putting together and how they will benefit. We
have to find that place where we can trust one another well enough to move
forward. And a big part of that is showing them the plans, which are very
specific. If they don’t trust me or don’t trust the plans, ultimately they
won’t buy in. We are in a position to show them a vision that has a very high
standard, and what we are trying to do is create an opportunity to make
investments that return money.
City: You talked about “streetscapes” several
times during the Design Matters workshop. What did you mean by that?
Schantz: For some reason, this area has been
slow to pick up on this; it’s not something you see here very often. It’s
everything you experience going through an area, on both sides of you. The
sidewalk widths, the lighting, the green space, the trees: All of these things
become a visual and interactive experience, whether you’re walking, driving, or
riding a bike. These are the things that invite you in and make you feel like
you’ve arrived. They’re the things that make you feel comfortable.
City: The Design Matters group placed a big
emphasis on the history of Irondequoit. What has been lost, and what you are doing to preserve more of it
now?
Schantz: Irondequoit has a fascinating and
diverse history. There have been books written about it, and unless you have
read them you probably wouldn’t think so. But again, when you don’t have a plan
that the entire town values, you don’t publicly value the town’s history. When
you don’t have specific guidelines or regulations in place to preserve your
historical buildings and your history, then you’re going to lose them.
It was only three or four years ago that we were able to
establish a landmark and historical committee with the legal means to preserve
some of our heritage. We are right now in the process of doing an inventory
identifying and cataloging our residential and commercial sites. There is a
cost to that, and you have to make that a priority and place a value on it.
Once people understand that this has value, then we will all go about
protecting these sites. But it’s important to bring this to the consciousness
of the people.
When you drive down the street, yes — we have lost a lot
of our historical character. The Evershed family was one of the first families
that came here in the 1820’s. They were all farmers, and they built a beautiful
old farmstead on the corner of Culver and Hoffman, which we desperately tried
to save. But because we did not have any legal ability to preserve it, and our
historical committee wasn’t in place, it was torn down.
City: During the Design Matters program, you said,
“We’re fighting for our lives here.” You also said, “We’re only going to get
one shot at this.” What did you mean?
Schantz: I believe that the next four to five
years will define this area for the next 25, locally and regionally. Either we
turn the corner and start making the changes to secure our future or we don’t.
You don’t stay in one place. You go up or down. Which is it?
I think the momentum is there. We just have to make it easy
for investors to see the potential. We have so much to offer. And, yes, I do
believe that we will have one shot at this.
This article appears in May 11-17, 2005.
