New “Urban” Target An Improvement, Not Far Off The Mark

Less than a year after the old Target store was closed and razed the new store has opened with much anticipation. Today I visited the store to check it out.

I’ve posted twice before on the new Target. First was in April and the second was in July. You might want to read those to get caught up.

Before I go any further I should state a few things:

The new store looks better than the old store. But, it would have been really sad if the new building didn’t look better than a 60’s cinder block building.

The brick colors are quite nice. Thankfully they avoided any sort of retro look for the building.

Target is the most attractive of all the big box retailers. Their merchandising is always top notch. They have a great selection of products at reasonable prices.

It is good they didn’t build a new store just outside the city.

I think I’ve covered all the basis with the above statements. Yet as you might expect, I have some critical thoughts on the project. I offer these as something to keep in mind for future projects in an urban area. Yes, I got a bit of a thrill walking into a store that had been open less than 48 hours but it still just a retail store. Let’s get started.

The image at left is the old site as seen from Google. The site is bordered by Chippewa on the North, Hampton on the East, Bancroft on the South and Clifton on the West. Across Hampton to the East is Hampton Village with Schnuck’s grocery. At this time Walgreen’s had not yet moved to the NE corner of Hampton & Chippewa.

The old building was quite close to Clifton and Bancroft and a good distance from the two main streets, Chippewa & Hampton. It was low, wide and drab. This image shows a former photo booth at the corner of the site. Remember photo booths?

Pedestrians, bicyclists and motorists have multiple ways to enter the site. In an unusually thoughtful touch they’ve given pedestrians a sidewalk to enter at an angle from the corner of Chippewa & Hampton. I actually saw a number of people using this. However, it dumped them into the parking lot. Luckily, the parking lot in front is small so getting to the walk in front of the building isn’t far. Oh yeah, I didn’t mention for those that don’t know — the building is built over a level of underground parking. This means the exposed surface parking is limited.

I did find the exterior surface parking was full and you had people waiting for space yet the garage was barely used. This will likely change as people realize more parking is underground. Plus as a bonus with the underground parking you get to use one of those nifty escalators for shopping carts.

The yellow stripe at the bottom of the picture is markings indicating the shopping cart anti-theft system. I saw a few carts near the edge of the lot and I must admit I was tempted to test the carts to see if they would indeed lock up. Not wanting to explain my actions to a security guard half my age I moved on.

The sidewalk along Hampton is all new and thankfully away from the street. I would have liked to have seen a row of trees between curb and sidewalk to make pedestrians feel more protected along the sidewalk. On-street parking is just a pipe dream.

Note: this picture was taken a few weeks ago before the store opened.

One entrance drive is provided along Hampton (also seen above). Chippewa and Bancroft each have separate entrances for the parking lot and parking garage.

Some of the entrances are better planned than others. This one off Hampton is three cars wide (one in, a left out and right out). The problem already witnessed today is that as soon as you pull off Hampton you have to decide if you are going straight ahead, left or right. We are going to see cars backed up on Hampton. Another problem is this entry is pretty close to Chippewa so people trying to turn left onto Northbound Hampton will likely have a difficult time.

This entrance is directly opposite an entrance to Hampton Village across Hampton. I saw a woman rush across the street toward the Target. It is near the crosswalk at Chippewa but far enough away that a pedestrian crossing might make sense. This certainly warrants observing how people will be crossing Hampton and determine if we need to make future changes to make sure pedestrians are safe.

The Southeast corner of the site where Bancroft has a traffic signal at Hampton and pedestrian crossings to Hampton Village is where you’d think they would have put a more direct sidewalk to get you from the corner to entrance. This is especially true since the store entrance is toward the South end of the Eastern facade.

I would love for landscape designers of these kinds of developments of learn about ground cover. These places are always grass and some wimpy evergreen shrubs. Get some Liriope (aka Monkey Grass) or other plantings in there. I have some issues with parking lots at Shaw & Vandeventer but at least they have nice plantings.

I do like that Target replaced their old main sign with a new sign that is much more subtle.

Back to Chippewa we see the parking lot crossing. I have to wonder if the man hole covers in the sidewalk path are in compliance with the ADA. Maybe so but it seems like they’d present problems to anyone in a wheelcare.

The big red ball is one of the numerous bollards. I kinda like these but I’m not sure they’ll hold up against cars. Just off of a major intersection in the city we have not the main store entry but the loading docks.

This metal framework attempts to continue the building line out toward Chippewa. It is certainly better having this in place rather than not having it but it is not very effective as a visual screen.

From the entry sidewalk you see the dock in full glory. The dwarf shrubs do nothing to improve the visual. Some grasses or bamboo would do wonders in this area. Vines on the framework would also add some interest.

But the real problem is we have loading docks occupying what should be valuable frontage along Chippewa. In more pedestrian cities a developer would never think to do this. If they did the city would likely prohibit them from doing so. But putting the docks in another location might be worse as they’d be closer to the residential area. Docks are clearly one of the big issues of big box design.

Bike racks are provided in the front of the building but a bit away from the entry. The four racks provide parking for eight bicycles — perhaps optimistic. While attractive I don’t care for this type of bike rack. The best design is an “inverted-U” rack that provides support for the bike frame in two places. Price isn’t really an issue as the racks cost the same. They also have plenty of space in front of the store for the inverted-u racks. Most likely some designer, that doesn’t bicycle, picked these out of a catalog. I’m glad they are there but for the same space and money they could have done better.

Bancroft Ave is the Southern edge of the site. This view is looking East toward Hampton with the Bank of America on the right. The new Target is actually set much further back from the street than the old Target store was.

Like the other streets I would like to see a row of street trees between the sidewalk and curb. These trees would serve as a comforting barrier between cars and pedestrians.

I’ve talked about Clifton before. They have tons of room and they could have easily poured the new sidewalk far enough away from the curb to provide a space for street trees. Also in this area is recycling containers for the neighborhood and they are just on the street. Again, with plenty of space available this could have been better accommodated.

In typical Target fashion the signage is clear, clean and interesting. Nice job!

Inside the store is more of the same, not a whole lot different than most other recent Targets. One notable exception is the food area. Target stores in Brentwood, Kirkwood and South County all sell some food but this store has substantially more aisles of food and tons of frozen food cases. I’ve already mentioned the escalators for the shopping carts but I never tire of watching them. I still marvel at them when I visit the Ikea near Chicago. If you park in the garage below the store you’ll use the escalators or the elevator.

Some have suggested this is a two-story Target — it is not. It is a one-story store with parking below. I’ve been to a two-story Target in Seattle which has much more of a department store feel. I would have liked for this to have been a real two-story Target. This would have permitted more development on the site in the form of more retail space or housing facing the adjacent neighborhood.

The food area is near the exit. It includes a Pizza Hut and Starbucks. The few windows along the front of the store are into this food area. It would have been interesting if they had taken the opportunity to have some French doors going to some red cafe tables on the “sidewalk” in front of the store. They could have closed off the doorway between the food area and store to allow for somewhat different hours for the Pizza Hut & Starbucks. If the store was two-story and pushed to the corner of Chippewa & Hampton the food area could have anchored the corner.

I give the project a B-

– Steve