RULE 84 | DO NOT ALLOW FRONT PARKING LOTS
- Holly Terrill
- Oct 15
- 5 min read
WALKABLE WICHITA: LESSONS FROM JEFF SPECK
BY RAMI STUCKY
In theory, the area around Douglas and Hillside should be one of Wichita’s most walkable. On the south side of Douglas lies the Hillcrest: a ten-story apartment complex that contains 97 units. The Uptown Landing is on the other side of the street and contains 202 units across two buildings. There are two coffee shops nearby, several restaurants, a couple of art galleries, a few salons, a dinner theater, a dentist’s office, a spa, and a furniture store nearby. The intersection even contains a business integral to all walkable places: a grocery store. the Dillons at 3020 East Douglas only lies about 600 feet from the Hillcrest and Uptown Landing. Several homes in this College Hill and East Front neighborhoods, most of them no more than 1,500 square feet, are less than 1,000 feet away as well.
Residents of the area wanting to walk to the grocery store are hamstrung by one main characteristic, though: the 80,000 square foot parking lot that is in front of the Dillons. Once they reach the northwest corner of the intersection, pedestrians must traverse almost 400 feet of parking lot just to get to the front door. For Hillcrest and Uptown Landing residents, this comprises about 40 percent of their entire 1,000-foot walk. Walking must be useful, notes Speck. For College Hill residents walking to the grocery store, this walk is. But it also must be safe, comfortable, and interesting as well. This walk is not. [1]
“Never allow front parking,” urban planner Jeff Speck argues in Walkable City Rules: 101 Steps to Making Better Places. [2] That is because they do five bad things simultaneously: destroy the spatial definition of the street, make walks less interesting, undermine the comfort and safety of pedestrians, depopulate sidewalks of strolling shoppers and “send a not-so-subtle message that the store is meant to serve motorists––who could be from anywhere––rather than locals.” [3]
The Dillons parking lot was not always there. As late as the 1950s, this portion of the north side of Douglas and Hillside held numerous stores that directly abutted the sidewalk. There was, from west to east, a Standard Service Station, the offices of George Cubbon Realtor, Don Cole Beauty Salon, City Radio & Electric Company and Central States Camera Company, a Ben Franklin Five and Dime Store, and a Spines Clothing shop. [4]
These businesses would no longer exist by 1983. In 1970, Safeway Stores Inc. had purchased a three-acre plot of land between Hillside and Lorraine, rezoned the property from single family to light commercial, demolished many of those storefronts, and built a grocery store. [5] In some ways, the new Safeway, which now houses Westlake Ace Hardware, was an architectural marvel. Designed by the firm Frankling-Frieze, the new building presented a “rustic exterior appearance to the passerby.” [6] Inside, “warm color pastels” were used to produce a “pleasing and bright interior.” Similarly, colors were accented by “modernistic sign cutouts to identify the various departments.” [7] Yet, in other ways, the new grocery store was a planning nightmare. The developers built a 150-car parking lot on the east and south sides of the building. [8] Doing so required 63,000 square feet of parking space for just 21,000 square feet of building space. [9]
Almost immediately, the development had negatively impacted the area. “At one time, the corner of Hillside and Douglas was a prime retail shopping area,” observed a team of architects studying the neighborhood. However, just three years after the Safeway construction, the intersection began to lack “identity and unity.” The street used to have stores and signage directly touching the sidewalk. However, there was a dearth of “commercial display” and “minimal social activity.” To make matters worse, the parking lot created a “sea of paving” that “polluted the visual environment.” [10]
Despite these downsides, the Safeway was thriving and, in 1980, felt the need to expand to the west. Their plans included constructing a new 49,000 square foot store the adjoined their old location and purchasing the Star Lumber at 3010 East Douglas and razing it to make way for expanded parking. Star Lumber would then inhabit the old Safeway to the east. [11] Nearby residents protested the plan, signed petition protests, and forced the Safeway to make several concessions, among them, building an eight-foot fence along the 100 block of North Chautauqua and incorporating a fence and landscaping along the north side of the building. [12] Carolyn O’Connor, of 123 N. Chautauqua, even wondered why Safeway needed to move and grow as it did in the first place. “It now exists on a commercial corner, and I would prefer to see it expand in place,” she argued. [13]
But such modest growth was off the table. Safeway was involved in what P.J. Rader of the Wichita Eagle called a “super store war” with Dillons. [14] Their competitor was slated to open a 52,000 square foot store on Edgemoor and Harry in 1983. Like the Safeway on Douglas and Hillside, this Dillons also had front-facing parking: about three times as large as the area of the grocery itself. [15]
City setback or traffic ordinances do not necessarily appear responsible for front parking. [16] Instead, it is often the decision of private developers. Nevertheless, cities can help and Speck proposes that cities “must be specific in their codes. All good new urban development ordinances outlaw front parking lots.” [17] Downtown Wichita does not yet have 5,000 residents, which is the residential concentration that big box stores would be looking to see in order to move into the area. [18] However, the population is growing and a grocery store seems imminent. Who, where, or when is still unclear. But one thing remains certain: wherever it goes, it should not have front parking.
[1] Jeff Speck, Walkable City Rules: 101 Steps to Making Better Places (Washington, DC: Island Press, 2018), 224–25.
[2] Speck, 200.
[3] Speck, 200.
[4] “Hillcrest Homes,” Wichita-Sedgwick County Historical Museum (blog), August 7, 2020, https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=10157003276972003&set=a.325225547002.
[5] “Safeway Stores Asks Zone Change to Construct Store on East Douglas,” Wichita Beacon, August 25, 1969, 3.
[6] “Ribbon Cutting Ceremony to Open New Safeway Tuesday,” Wichita Beacon, November 16, 1970, 24.
[7] “Douglas and Hillside Safeway Construction Start Imminent,” Wichita Beacon, June 7, 1970, 49.
[8] “Ribbon Cutting Ceremony to Open New Safeway Tuesday.”
[9] “Safeway Stores Asks Zone Change to Construct Store on East Douglas.”
[10] Delores Quinlisk, “Economic Distress Can Be Overcome,” Wichita Eagle, July 8, 1973, 39.
[11] Karen Zwingelberg, “Supermarket Protesters to Petition City,” Wichita Beacon, July 7, 1980, 24.
[12] Bill Shelton, “State’s Largest Safeway Store Under Way at Douglas, Hillside,” Wichita Eagle, August 1, 1982, 62.
[13] Zwingelberg, “Supermarket Protesters to Petition City.”
[14] P.J. Rader, “Groceries Do Battle For New Customers with ‘Super Stores,’” Wichita Eagle, July 10, 1983, 1.
[15] Beth Rosenberg, “Dillons Has Renters Shopping for Homes,” Wichita Eagle, November 10, 1981, 69.
[16] Thanks to city employees Mike Armour and Moumita Kundu for their assistance in deciphering city codes as they pertain to front parking.
[17] Speck, Walkable City Rules: 101 Steps to Making Better Places, 201.
[18] Landmark Commercial Real Estate, “The Market for a Market – Why Downtown Wichita Doesn’t Have a Grocery Store and What It Would Take to Get One,” May 31, 2022, https://www.landmarkrealestate.net/the-market-for-a-market-why-downtown-wichita-doesnt-have-a-grocery-store-and-what-it-would-take-to-get-one/.
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