6 ways to turn SouthPark into a great urban neighborhood

Density alone does not create a great street or urban area.

SouthPark, originally a suburban mall on the edge of the city, is now one of the state’s largest shopping and employment centers. And recently, the level of housing within “walking distance” is staggering. (Notice the quotation marks around “walking distance.”) Hundreds of apartments are rising or being planned. Speculative office buildings are on the rise once again and it seems retailers, particularly those at the high end, are falling over themselves to find a place nearby.

But SouthPark still doesn’t feel like a walkable, urban area.

New mixed-use developments feel more like cul-de-sacs than like main streets. They are visually — and often physically — disconnected from the larger street network.

The blank walls of each CVS, Walgreens and office building conspire with their larger neighbors to destroy the potential for an interesting sidewalk trip that could inspire people to walk rather than drive.

Many folks will throw up their hands and say the amount of traffic along Fairview and Sharon roads is too high to make a great street. That is because they are still thinking of the area as an auto-dependent suburban mall and not as a downtown.

It’s not too late for a suburban teenaged neighborhood to grow into an urban adult.

Here are six key things the SouthPark area needs to start doing immediately:

(1) Update the SouthPark area plan. Last adopted in 2000, it has nuggets of great wisdom, but they’re buried among unnecessary data. Ground-floor design and mobility at the human scale are the most important elements. And most of all, stop thinking about the area as a suburban mall and plan for it to be a city.

(2) Implement a zoning code for the area that ensures a more predictable urban environment. Relying on a 15-year-old plan and a cumbersome rezoning process will never produce the best possible outcome, nor will rezoning it ad hoc.

(3) Convert Fairview and Sharon roads to urban streets. Urban streets carry a lot of traffic but also balance the needs of cars, pedestrians, cyclists and transit. These streets are important to the overall city network, but for one mile can they be so much more?

(4) Begin planning for more transit service. Begin building frequent, predictable service with rubber-tired trolleys circulating around the area. Plan for premium, fixed-guideway services in the future, such as dedicated rapid-transit bus lanes, streetcars or light rail.

(5) Manage the district, not individual projects. Like Center City, South End and other mixed-use districts around the country, the collective assets and resources, both current and planned, should be collectively managed to make the most of their efficiency and to reduce the consequences of incrementalism.

(6) Quit arguing about traffic. Congestion will never be solved. At this stage of city growth, urban design, walkability and planning for premium transit are much more critical to the conversation.

South Park traffic will be my demise

— brittany jordan (@bjordan___) December 15, 2014

Photos: Joshua Komer/Charlotte Observer; Mark Hames/Charlotte Observer; Bella Tang/Stantec

This story originally appeared at PlanCharlotte.org, an online publication of the UNC Charlotte Urban Institute, focusing on growth, land use and the environment in the Charlotte metro region.

This story was originally published August 26, 2015 at 10:00 PM with the headline "6 ways to turn SouthPark into a great urban neighborhood."