Planetizen published a story on Denver's retrofitted suburban malls leading a national trend towards New Urbanism.
Excerpt:
This topic is of interest because Denver has been retrofitting its dead and dying suburban malls for a while now, on a New Urbanist "town center" model. More than half of our dozen or so regional malls are already retrofitted, and more are being repurposed as we speak. Dunham-Jones routinely identifies
Belmar on the site of the old Villa Italia Mall in suburban Lakewood as a retrofit success story, distinguished by green buildings, great connectivity, and a nice "sense of place." Simmons Buntin concurs in his chapter about Belmar for Planetizen Press's
Unsprawl: Remixing Spaces as Places. He pitches Belmar as "a model for redeveloping suburban malls across the U.S." Alan Ehrenhalt, in
The Great Inversion, casts Denver as "the emerging capital" of America's suburban town center phenomenon.
Read the rest
here.
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