Ennis, great ideas. It is a wonder that the designers of projects the City is funding around the urban core miss the boat so much. All one has to do is look at successful pedestrian driven developments to understand many of these approaches. While few in number in our area, they could travel as close as Town Center, St. George Street and Center Street to find inspiration.
The lack of creative and well reasoned thinking is mind boggling. For examples of the failure to think the pedestrian/retail relationship properly, just look at Unity Plaza down the street from this project. Of course, Downtown is the ultimate failure to date.
For a great example of "narrow street/wide sidewalk" vitality, check out Wall Street, only about 2 city blocks long, in bustling Asheville:
