The enclosed shopping mall, an uniquely American retail innovation, was the “future of retail” in the 1950s and 60s.  Shopping centers became an icon of suburban living in the 1970s and 80s, before beginning their slowly accelerating decline in the 1990s.  Today, the growing number of dead or dying shopping malls and centers are seen as symbols of the downside of “suburban sprawl.”

One example of this pattern is the Plaza Pasadena shopping center, an enclosed mall established originally as the cornerstone of an urban revitalization effort in Pasadena, California.  See “A Case Study in Successful Failure” for more on the birth, life, death, and future of this mall.

From a planning perspective, local communities can no longer assume that shopping centers will…
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Dear Subscribers,

Our weekly email digest of updates from our website got out of hand on Saturday for some of our subscribers, sending multiple copies due to an as-yet unknown error. For this, I apologize on behalf of Building Place.

The weekly digest feature has been disabled until we determine where the glitch occured.

- Rodney C. Nanney, AICP, Building Place
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Making the numbers work to finance rehabilitation and adaptive re-use of a historic building is often a struggle for property owners in Michigan.  For this reason, federal and state historic rehabilitation tax credits have played a large part in the revitalization of many historic downtowns and neighborhoods across the state.

Historic rehabs can cost significantly more than building a similar size new building on a vacant “greenfield” site.  Such tax credits have been used by property owners and developers to ‘bridge the gap,’ and have often meant the difference between a vibrant streetscape and a long-vacant eyesore.

These credits can be used to offset the added costs, or to improve return on investment.  Such credits are also transferrable, so a project involving historic rehabilitation may be able to attract additional investment from banks or other institutions looking for tax credits to offset against other income.

More information on specific state historic preservation programs and incentives can be found on the state website (click here).

The State of Michigan has long recognized that rehabbing a historic building for new businesses and residents can provide significant benefits to a community.  Recently, in the midst of a very difficult budget year, the state legislature managed to…
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The following case summary was adapted from one prepared by Kurt Schindler at MSU-Extension; excerpts reprinted with permission from the author.  For the Zoning Guru, this case raises an important question for planners and zoning administrators:

“Do you know what’s in your zoning ordinance?“

Court: Michigan Court of Appeals (Unpublished No. 283202, March 17, 2009)

Case Name:  Richie v. Gladwin County

Background:

Mr. Ritchie (the plaintiff) removed a barn from his square (four sides of equal length), corner lot at Highwood and Hay Roads in Gladwin County, and constructed a quonset hut on the barn’s foundations.

“At issue was whether the portion of plaintiffs’ property on Hay Road was…

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News courtesy of Kurt Schindler at MSU-Extension:

A new manual describing Low Impact Development (LID) techniques that uses basic principles modeled after nature to protect the environment and manage storm water runoff for land development in Michigan is now available.

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In his book What Your Planning Professor Forgot to Tell You, Paul Zucker, FAICP offers practical advice for new professional planners.  Reading it inspired me to reflect on the experiences that have helped me to be successful in this field, both before and after receiving my degree.

I’d like to offer some “words of wisdom” to new urban and regional planning students, which are based upon my experience and the collective wisdom of the many professional planners and others I’ve come into contact with since I started down this career path:

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