A failed "main street" development

We have recently moved to a new suburb, where the closest shopping area is the Dog Swamp Shopping Centre. Despite its appealing name, the Shopping Centre features an unusual configuration of not one but two boxes, staring at each other across a carpark. The configuration does not do the shopping centre any favours, as each box is locked in competition with the other to attract customers.

Luckily, we are not far from the traditional shopping street of Mount Hawthorn. Excitedly, my girlfriend and i arrived to explore the main street - only to find that it was eerily quiet, like a sleepy country town. Despite being of a decent size, there was nowhere near the same number of people on the street in comparison to similar-sized main streets elsewhere. The main street itself couldn't be faulted, as it had all the usual suspects like cafés, a grocer, fashion retailers, a pub and bottle shop, post office and numerous salons all built up to the main street in a traditional manner.

It took me a week to discover The Mezz - a recently refurbished shopping centre right in the middle of the main street. Its refurbishment ticks all of the urban designer's boxes. It is built up to the main street, with shop frontage, generous pedestrian shelter, two-storey built form with articulation of the façade, and carparking hidden at the rear. It also features a new "main street" at the rear with more shop fronts on both sides, with gaps between the shops offering only fleeting glimpses of the carparking area. The reason it took me so long to find is this:

This picture shows the only entrance to the shopping centre from the main street. Can't find it? Hint: It's just to the right of the Dôme café. Inside, the entrance looks like this:

Pretty underwhelming; it looks like this street entrance has been put in as an afterthought, and probably to the detriment of the café.

Why does this shopping centre fail? Quite simply, it subtracts from the main street. By providing such a poor link between the shopping centre and the main street, it does not invite people to move between the two, but instead discourages it. Shopping centre users have no reason to go to the main street or vice versa. In essence, it has destroyed the symbiotic relationship that all shops in a shopping centre depend on, that shoppers will pass their shops and buy on impulse.

Neither is the new main street successful - it has no relationship to the real main street or even the side streets that it connects to. The design in inward looking and offers nothing to its surrounding environment. This is a view of the new "main street" from the side street:

No wonder we found the Mount Hawthorn main street unusually quiet - The Mezz is designed to operate in almost complete isolation to the main street it is attached to, much like the two halves of the Dog Swamp Shopping Centre. With this shopping centre versus main street dichotomy, both are likely to struggle to survive, given the lack of a relationship between the two parts. Town planners and urban designers when considering any development proposal should always ensure that the development adds to, and does not subtract from, its environment.