Just days ahead of opening day, and the ground level retail in the new Marlins Park parking garages remain vacant. The worst part about this scene is that despite being one block away from a shiny new stadium, pedestrians would have no idea it even exists, save for one brief peek when crossing the street, as seen at :33.
Miami Today reports that a few leases have been signed, but hopes for a vibrant non-game day street environment remain a farfetched fantasy.
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5 Responses to Video O’ the Day: The (not so) Vibrant Streetscape Around Marlins Park
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Tell me one MLB stadium that has FULL ground floor retail across their entire parking garage? (still waiting)
Tell me one MLB stadium that has over 200 covered bicycle parking spaces? (still waiting)
Tell me one MLB stadium that has reconnected the street grid from what was once a superblock? (hmmm- your stumped)
Tell me one MLB stadium that will have ground floor retail facing a 2 acre public plaza open 365 days a year? (really- no answers yet?)
Tell me one MLB stadium that has grass surface parking lots to minimize runoff?
Tell me one MLB stadium where a neighborhood child can play ball in the shadows of the pros?
Tell me one stadium that foregoes the profit of the entire left field bleachers to protect views of downtown?
Tell me one stadium that preserved the WPA murals from the orange bowl and re-installed these on the parking garages facing the west plaza?
Do I need to continue with LEED Certification, daylighting the concourse levels, art displays, wide sidewalks for cafes, street trees at back of curbs, modern lighting, architectural columns, room for affordable housing liner on the south garages, trasitions from the stadium to the neighborhood, 2 transit links and existing bus lines?
Maybe you need to turn the corner and go down the avenues. Maybe you need to ask the commission why the retail is not leased- it will be soon. Maybe you don’t like the architecture, the financing, the owner, but don’t tell me this is not the most urban friendly new ballpark in the country.
Ride your bike to Dolphin Stadium or Bank Atlantic Center and if your still alive come back and tell me how the Marlins Stadium is not Urban!
I don’t have the time to take on this entire post but the most obvious faults in your comment are:
#2 – San Francisco, Wrigley and Washington DC all have fully attended, free bicycle valets. And those are just the three I know off the top of my head. Much better than racks located in the middle of a garage, which will pit bikes and cars in direct conflict. (Why not use one of the vacant retail spaces for a bike valet?) I’m tired of hearing about these garage bike racks like it’s some kind of heroic acheivement.
Also, with their LEED certification, you’d think the Marlins do something to encourage biking and walking to the game. Instead, they list biking and walking information last on their website for ‘How to get to the game’. First is car parking, of course. Nothing less LEED-y than that. Further, the Marlins refused to help fund any improvements to the streets cape around the stadium, and list “funded” greenways as a bike route to the game, even though they don’t exist, which I find tremendously misleading and disingenous.
Tell me one MLB stadium where a neighborhood child can play ball in the shadows of the pros?
- Yankee Stadium (Macoombs Dam Park) Literally in the shadow of it. Again, some research probably yields more.
Fenway, Camden Yards, Denver, San Fran, Wrigley and non-baseball arenas like in Columbus, OH all have reasons to be near the stadium on non-game days; vibrant districts that incorporate retail and housing. The Marlins could have done this by building in downtown Miami and capitalizing on the re-birth of the area and the thousands of new residents and professionals that live there, that by all accounts are target Marlins fans/customers.
With so many wonderful examples of new baseball parks seamlessly integrating with urban areas, it’s perplexing why the Marlins decided to build a facility that is so out of scale with it’s surrounding area that it seems virtually hostile to it, rather than integrating with it.
Thank you Craig for taking the time to research and respond to such speculative jabber. @ US, citing architectural achievements and LEED compliance does nothing to convince urban designers and planners that this stadium’s “achievements” transcend toward the adjacent street and context.
What data revealed that ground floor retail was the relevant choice to stimulate any form of economic stimulus for the EXISTING community? And as I’ve mentioned before these store fronts appear to have an architectural aesthetic (or lack there of) of ubiquitous office/clinic buildings out west. This community deserves more than a blockade or barrier detouring economic growth away from where the economic growth should be occurring.
Why the constant belittling of the hardworking taxpayer and entrepreneur. You say you speak ubanistically, where is the streetscape that will blur the definitive boundaries of private and public space? Where are the pedestrian and cyclist thoroughfares that connect adjacencies? How about pedestrian passage to mass transit? I, like Craig mentioned, have always said that baseball needs to be at the downtown core. placed beside transit and burgeoning environments, but we got this instead.
You brag about amenities, but what you don’t realize is that bike racks, permeable surfaces, public space and architectural preservation is expected as a minimum for a project of this size. The issue here is the urban realm that has whimsically been taken into consideration. Yes, I know, the public plaza and park. Great, but why the heavy hand of retail and affordable housing liner. Isn’t there enough property in the area where other investors can come in and provide housing and the proper form retail and entertainment that will reflect properly to context (existing and new)?
This is baseball in an existing urban fabric. Work with the fabric you have, don’t strike down a heavy hand of “urbanism”. It already exists.
You are right about that I do not like the architecture, financing and the owner, but I will tell you that this park fell extremely short on what you say “urban friendly” is. What ever the fuck that means… The simple fact that taxpayers flipped the bill on this and nothing was done with the ROW’s on 17th and 7th… Shit you don’t even know the damn stadium or park exists when you drive down 7th. Big Architectural fail! It’s just sad when you know it could have been so much more…
I agree that a bike lane and marked cross walks are needed AND would be effective in some manner. HOWEVER…. what NEEDS to change without a shadow of a doubt is the ignorant culture here in this city of both drivers and pedestrians alike.
People LOVE to run while crossing streets and that makes drivers not even Consider stopping or slowing down for the peds.
FURTHERMORE, you need ENFORCEMENT!!! Yes COPS…!!!! There is no use in putting more laws or more signs, or more ANYTHING unless there is enforcement of the laws on the books.
I agree that a bike lane and marked cross walks are needed AND would be effective in some manner. HOWEVER…. what NEEDS to change without a shadow of a doubt is the ignorant culture here in this city of both drivers and pedestrians alike.
People LOVE to run while crossing streets and that makes drivers not even Consider stopping or slowing down for the peds.
FURTHERMORE, you need ENFORCEMENT!!! Yes COPS…!!!! There is no use in putting more laws or more signs, or more ANYTHING unless there is enforcement of the laws on the books.