The era of the Big Ugly Box is now over in Madison. This past Tuesday, the City Council voted almost unanimously, 18-1, to pass a bill requiring large warehouse-style shopping stores to be set closer to the sidewalk and also mandates aesthetic improvements to their faces. No longer will you see a giant, bland Wal-Mart or Best Buy with large parking lots separating the store from the street and no aesthetic appeal whatsoever. This is another welcomed and much-needed step at ‘urbanizing’ some of the recent sprawl that has spread throughout the city.
“Urbanizing” is the current trend in city planning that is meant to beautify new business fronts with an attempt to have them naturally blend into the cityscape. By having different stores share a common façade, a specific atmosphere is created that fosters a community spirit.
According to the new ordinance, the faces of new buildings larger than 40,000 square feet must incorporate some design elements and varied rooflines. In addition to the overtly aesthetic elements, stores cannot be larger than 100,000 square feet unless they receive special permission by the City Council. The hope is that the impact on the land, if the store closes, will be limited if the overall size is constrained.
Another aspect of the measure is that these large stores can only have a few rows of parking between the sidewalk (which must be constructed with the building) and the front door, with additional parking available behind the store. Rather than being confronted by a sea of asphalt in the form of a parking lot in front of a super-store, customers will be able to just walk right up to the front door from the sidewalk. This will make large stores more pedestrian-friendly.
Many think that this is a futile attempt at making an ugly building pretty — that no matter what laws are passed, a giant ugly Wal-Mart will still be a giant ugly Wal-Mart. Ald. Austin King, District 8, and City Council President Brenda Konkel proposed amendments that would strengthen the law and make the requirements for these mega-stores more stringent, but after being struck down they still voted for the measure. The position some hold that these large superstores do not belong in the city and drive out local business is a respectable one, but it ignores the realities of the world.
Others may say that these measures go too far and will drive big business away and into neighboring towns. Ald. Zach Brandon, District 7, cast the lone dissenting vote for fear that business will be lost. While these additional requirements involve more work and more money from the builder, these costs will surely be neutralized by the drawing power of the Madison market.
While both of these positions are valid, they lack a balance of reality with the ideal. Realistically, people desire a wide variety of choices while shopping and mega-stores provide those options. Also, more often than not, these stores offer products at lower prices, which is a valuable reason to try to accommodate them so they do not leave Madison. Ideally, Madison would be full of family-owned, community-based shops that positively contribute to the neighborhood. This measure fuses these two concerns together and a practical compromise is forged.
The bottom line is that if this measure was not passed, large, boxy stores such as Home Depot and Wal-Mart will build in Madison without attempting to incorporate the feel of the neighborhood into the design and would remain dull and boring-looking. While this law does not do much to detract these stores from coming into town and running local shops out of business, it does make their intrusion more palatable.
Jackie Lantz ([email protected]) is a senior majoring in political science.