New Urbanist/Walmart Summit

Notes by Laura Hall on a meeting with Walmart to discuss an urban model, based on ideas that came out of the Mississippi Katrina charrette:

1. Prototypical designs: Wal-Mart is actively working on what they
call "non-prototypical" designs, including green and multilevel urban
buildings. Green buildings they are most proud of are those in
McKinney, Texas and Aurora, Colorado. Lots of cool "green" stuff, but
both buildings still have long blank walls and sit behind large parking
lots. They also showed us examples of their urban, multi-level
buildings. From my notes, these examples are in Honolulu, Baldwin
Hills, Korea, Coral Springs and Long Beach. Most of them looked like
they had public streets in front of them. When I expressed my surprise
that I hadn't heard about these, one of them remarked that the only news
that gets written about Wal-Mart is bad news. Currently, though, they
see this model being used mostly in dense urban settings outside of the
U.S.

2. Architecture: They are actively considering the mixed-used,
multi-level Wal-Mart design that Ben Pentreath drew for Pass Christian
during the Forum charrette. They did call us on the carpet about the
architectural style, though. One of them said he had heard that Ben was
from England, and that although he thought his drawing was beautiful, he
respectfully said that it looked like Buckingham Palace! They said they
were more interested in an architecture for the Pass Christian store
that reflected the South. (Yes, you've read this correctly.)

3. Suburban vs. Urban: Before the Mississippi Forum, Wal-Mart
hadn't considered an urban building model to be appropriate along the
Gulf Coast. They said they've only built urban buildings where there
was already an urban setting, and mostly out of the U.S. They normally
don't create the urban setting themselves. We were asked, "When is the
Wal-Mart Village coming to Pass Christian?" in reference to Tom Low's
charrette drawing.

4. SmartCode: We told them that the Pass Christian SmartCode could
enable the development of the Wal-Mart Village. As a group, they were
interested in learning more about the SmartCode. None of them had heard
about it before. One of them said that it sounded like a great idea
because the same rules would then apply to everyone - not one set of
standards for Wal-Mart and one set of standards for everyone else as is
often the case in the communities where they work. At least two of them
are now planning to attend the SmartCode workshop in Biloxi in March.

5. Wal-Mart and New Urbanism: After the meeting, one of them told
me that New Urbanist communities only have high end stores and that the
regular people need to have places to shop, too. Having a Wal-Mart
included in these projects would increase diversity and choice.

6. Pace of rebuilding: We made it very clear that the Pass
Christian Mayor and Board of Aldermen want Wal-Mart rebuilt as soon as
possible since it had represented 15% of their city budget prior to
Katrina. They do not want design considerations to slow down the
rebuilding. One of the Wal-Mart executives told a member of our team,
"But quick doesn't have to mean ugly."

7. Follow up: They have given us their commitment to send 1-2
people from Wal-Mart's Real Estate and Design division to the Pass
Christian SmartCode charrette Feb. 15-19 to work on the design of the
Pass Christian Wal-Mart store and/or village. We told them that this
would be a roll-up-your-sleeves-event where real plans would be made.
They said they understood this and they then gave us the names of their
local architects for follow-up.

We couldn't have asked for a better meeting, and we remain very hopeful
about the implications for Pass Christian, Ocean Springs and other
communities. All feedback is welcome and appreciated as the City of Pass Christian
moves forward with their rebuilding plans.