Wild Saturday: after pickleball and the gym, respectively, my wife and I went to TWO mall-like areas-- this is highly unusual behavior-- but we had a Seasons 52 gift card (the best chain restaurant I've ever been to . . . besides White Castle) and Seasons 52 is right next to Barnes and Nobles-- which resides next to the Menlo Park Mall, in a semi-attached manner-- and we wanted to get my father a couple of books for Fathers Day-- and it was hot and sunny so we parked in the shade, underneath what I believe is more parking-- and it's kind of nuts that EVERYONE in the lot didn't park in the shady area-- but there were plenty of spaces-- weird-- and then we actually walked through the mall-- the first time I've done that in a long, long time-- and made our way to Barnes and Nobles, bought a couple of books (no more Educator Discount, boo!) and then we ate lunch and then when we got back to the car, it was nice and cool, despite the sun-- because we had the foresight to park in the shade-- then we went to Wegman's, which resides near Woodbridge Center Mall, and we got some fresh fish for dinner and some good beer and cider-- but when we got back to the car, it was HOT . . . because there was zero shaded parking-- and this makes me wonder: why don't we build all our large stores on top of the parking lots, which would save space, allowed for more green areas, avoid over-heated cars, avoid such long walks across hot parking lots, and it would look a lot nicer-- there should be some incentive to build over the parking lot and then have a belt of green space around the lot-- which would also avoid the incredible heat sink that is a large stretch of asphalt-- anyway, I'm sure there's prohibitive costs associated with this plan-- but maybe in the future we'll incentive the right things so that the cost is neglible (and Rutgers has some parking lots that are shaded by solar panels-- this is another solution) but the next time I go to the Menlo Park Mall when it's hot (which might not be for a decade) I know where to park.
4 comments:
When I was a kid a portion of the parking at the Bergen Mall was underground and highly prized in all weather conditions. I don't know if they filled it in with stores--it wouldn't make sense to do that, but it's now called Bergen Town Center which doesn't make sense either (Bergen is the name of the county and the town is Paramus) so who knows what mall nonsense is going on out there.
maybe because it's so dense there? or they had some foresight . . .
Barnes 2, Noble 1
Town Center seems to be the catch-all term for the exterior store bundling, as opposed to the old (now very dead) interior mall design and the less sexy, smaller, segmented linear shopping centers. Around my town, Coliseum Mall was razed to make Peninsula Town Center and some cruddy little shopping centers were wiped out to make Virginia Beach Town Center.
It's the new style.
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