08/19/86 Special Meeting - Laserfiche WebLink

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Firestone Boulevard, Downey. What does the strip want to be? view procedure, it is only now developing a list of set standards. Recognizing that the problems of Firestone Boulevard are replicated in thousands of suburban areas throughout the country, we asked our panel first to comment on this particular strip's strengths and weaknesses and then to suggest direc- tions for the future. Planning. We began our tour this morning with the premise that Firestone Boulevard is a problem area. Could we be wrong? After all, this is southern Caldor- nia, renowned for the strip, and Firestone is a classic bit of strip. Perhaps we should just leave it alone-learn from Las Vegas, in the words of Denise Scott Brown in last month's Planning. Heckman. That might be a viable alternative-although not necessarily one I approve of-if, in fact, Downey were more like Las Vegas. But it's not. Firestone would have to be a lot more intense, a lot more glitzy, and a lot more economically healthy even to come close. I suppose you could ide.nfi~y a portion of the strip as a place where an~hing goes, where there's no sign control, for instance. Tustian. A lot of people who live here probably like Firestone just the way it is. I think it's important to look at the strip from a macroscale perspective and ask who ex- cept the architects and planners really wants things to change. But you've also pointed out that residents are beginning to perceive that their main street, their front parlor so to speak, is getting shabby. Before you decide what to do about that, however, you need to know more about what's hap- pening. You need an economic analysis of this retailing climate and a good picture of the demography and travel patterns. You need to understand the behavioral forces that condition the way people use this area. To change the form, you have to under- stand the functional elements. No there there Heckman. If this strip has a problem, it's the old one: There's no there there. It's hard to see a pattern as you drive up and down the corridor. It's like what the political scientist Norton Long called a series of in- consequential decisions that have built to a massive calamity. A whole series of things have happened through the years, and the result is a lack of coherence. I see that you're beginning to get a vertical core in the older downtown area, with the Bank of America building, the hotel, and the new office buildings that are going up. But I'm very concerned about how the new buildings are going to link together. With-