Revamped Lakewood Civic Plaza Is Very, Very Quiet

The pedestrian plaza between the Lakewood Cultural Center and the Lakewood Civic Center has just reopened after a period of extensive renovation that lasted most of last year.

I was over in the plaza around noon just a few days ago and shot these photos. The plaza now features trees, grass and a fountain that are all surrounded by a ring of outdoor benches and planters. It's really a much nicer space than it was before.

The most interesting thing about the revamped plaza, however, was the lack of people. Even though it was lunchtime, no one was making use of this public space.

Lakewood Civic Plaza looking east

In my view, the problem is that the Lakewood City  Commons development (of which the Lakewood Civic Center is a part) is poorly designed. The shopping center positions its highest volume retailers east along Wadsworth, while the storefronts near the plaza on the west side are mostly empty. In between the two is a sea of parking spaces. As a result, people drive right up to their destinations on the east side, shop, and then get right back into their cars. They have no reason to explore a new store, try a new restaurant, or wander a block over to this very nice public space. And so the area feels dead.

Surface parking in Lakewood City Commons

In contrast, the new urbanist Belmar development (located right across Wadsworth from the Lakewood City Commons) has much less surface parking. High volume retailers are mixed throughout. Parking is perceived as being "harder," and yet the streets feel much more vibrant. People end up walking a bit to their destinations, and so there's less of a barrier to popping into someplace new-- after all, you're already out of the car. For much the same reason, Belmar's central plaza has people in it night and day, and the development has a lower vacancy rate than Lakewood City Commons.

Seating in the new plaza area

True, part of this vibrancy is because people actually live in Belmar, while Lakewood City Commons is mostly commercial or government usage, but there's no reason the owners of Lakewood City Commons and the city couldn't develop residential on their side of Wadsworth too. There's plenty of surface parking in Lakewood City Commons that could be built on, whether for apartments or high volume retail.

Unless that happens, though, I predict Lakewood City Commons is going to continue to play second fiddle to Belmar, and the city's lovely new civic plaza is going to stay very, very quiet.