Our experiences of great cities in the world are defined by many things. Local art, culture, music, and cuisine all leave distinct impressions about a sense-of-place. Sometimes place embodies the natural beauty of a setting, and often it is defined by the manmade environments we create. Santa Barbara certainly enjoys equal measures of both. Many urban places evolve over time, tapestries woven together by careful planning as well as an evolution of a rich language of architecture and landscape design. We revel in a stroll through Venice, arriving at St. Mark’s to be entertained by the flight of pigeons; or gaze at the skaters at Rockefeller Center gliding across the ice; or celebrate the wedding party on our courthouse lawn.
It is without a doubt that conscious planning and design efforts formed these creations and imbued them with a special sense-of-place. Architects, artists, urban planners, landscape architects, and a host of talented collaborators have shaped our physical reality, sculpting space using form and scale, texture and pattern, and innovation and context to solve problems, but most importantly, to create delight. These dreamers have woven the fabric that cloaks us with the memories of spaces and places that define our cultural conscience. As we focus on State Street and begin to imagine its future, solutions will need to address the forces reshaping our businesses, lifestyles, and the environment. In the not-so-distant past, shopping malls replaced mom-and-pop retailers on Main Streets across America and created economic blights in small towns. Santa Barbara responded with Paseo Nuevo, intertwined with Main Street and supported by an ample amount of well-integrated parking structures to help ensure downtown activity. It was a timely and intelligent plan that worked well … until now.
Once again, significant changes in our culture are compelling us to adapt. America has transitioned from a largely manufacturing to a service-based economy. Powerful technologies have increased productivity while requiring fewer people in the workforce. The pandemic has amplified how the internet has forever changed the ways we work, play, shop, and manufacture. These pressures have focused a spotlight on the stress fractures that are certainly apparent in our downtown. Commercial vacancy robs our downtown of its vitality. Housing is an urgent priority, but the shoebox-shaped properties that line State Street (which no longer address the operating needs of retailers) make mixed-use development on these undersized lots very challenging. Adaptive reuse of the failed department stores poses costly structural and infrastructure challenges that will require exploring imaginative design solutions that can be economically feasible. The conversion of State Street into an open-air mall will also need the best of our talents to make a public realm that embraces our special historical identity while striving to be relevant in the 21st century and for future generations of Santa Barbara residents and visitors.