Why Should McDonald’s Do This?

Because they will make money. Even if this may be good for the rest of the community, why should McDonalds do something they don’t want? They already have a profitable franchise. They don’t have to rebuild to stay in business.

The reason to change is that McDonalds will make a lot of money. The future of 2nd and Colorado is with pedestrians, not the automobile. A pedestrian-oriented McDonalds therefore means cash.

Pedestrian flow will increase from people coming and going to the Civic Center’s 300+ units of housing, acres of parkland and a town square in front of City Hall.

Santa Monica Place’s long range plan is to extend the Third Street Promenade all the way to Colorado Avenue opening up the mall to the sky. There will also be a branch from the extended Promenade to 2nd and Colorado.

When the light rail station is built at 4th and Colorado, additional thousands will join this flow every day, walking down Colorado towards the Pier and Palisades Park.

Housing in the Civic Center and in Santa Monica Place’s renovation will also improve 2nd and Colorado, adding a resident feel to the area. This will be good for business and make public spaces safer, from the Civic Center to the 2nd and Colorado plaza.

There is currently a perception of a problem at 2nd and Colorado, even though the SMPD does not report many service calls for the area. The answer is to design a great public space that works, rather than retreat from the challenge and underachieve.

The key to having a safe and prosperous project, is to have the area used by a mix of people, so that public spaces don’t get dominated by one group of people.

The area on the Promenade where at times there are problems with anti-social behavior -- the Center Court -- is a victim of poor design, as pedestrians flow around that interior court area, such that it is easily monopolized by one group at the expense of all others.

A plaza at 2nd/Colorado can and should be designed with public safety in mind. But that doesn’t mean it can’t be done and done well.

The existing McDonalds has 13 outside tables. These tables are surrounded by a significant amount of Green space, promoting a general sense of openness at the corner (even though that openness is depreciated by the surface parking lots to the north and to the west.)

Unfortunately, the currently approved McDonald’s remodel eliminates almost all of the public open space (devoting it instead to surface parking) and internalizes the outdoor dining at the corner of 2nd and Colorado under a canopy and behind a low wall.

Most of the ‘outdoor’ tables under this plan do not interact with the pedestrians. This sterile approach loses the potential for major “people watching” on the site between diners and pedestrians.

If a plaza were created that mixed different types of restaurants in a vibrant public space that also included nearby ground floor retail, housing and lodging, the feel of the space would be much different.

Further ideas for the site could include a ground floor passage from the motel rooms through an atrium out onto the plaza, adding another pedestrian flow into the area and passing by the ground floor retail within the project that also connects to 2nd Street.

On the alley side, that area could be cleaned, repaved and refurbished around a redesigned centralizing of refuse storage and collection among all of the adjacent restaurants. The City is implementing a pilot restaurant food waste collection program that, by separating food waste for ultimate use as compost, eliminates most alley odors by taking food wastes out of play.

Thinking back to the plaza, why not show films on the front wall of the buildings overlooking the plaza during the American Film Market? That would be a fun use of public space.

Finally, planning for this corner could be coordinated with planning for the Santa Monica Place redevelopment, so that the entire vision for the area comes together.

In Sum

The potential for 2nd and Colorado is enormous. There is no rush to get something built there that doesn’t reach that potential, just because what might be proposed might be better than what is there now.

What is there now may not be the most attractive corner on the Westside. But what is built there next is likely to last for the next 50+ years.