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I’m in the middle of remodeling my house. I feel like I owe it to the world to report on the untold subplots in the story of upgrading homes and lives. These are the deleted scenes from home remodeling shows. This is the truth:

• I don’t look cool. It’s hard to look at myself in the mirror. For most of my life I’ve prided myself in being a fashionable, well-dressed man. Man at his best. Not anymore! Since I’ll be sloshing around paint and wood stain, I wear my most unfashionable shorts or pants, the ones that I haven’t worn outside of the home in 5 years. I rip the sleeves off of my most faded or awkward shaped T-shirts. These are the staples of my remodeling wardrobe. If I saw some dude dressed like me in public, I’d pity him as a man painfully unaware of his appearance. I now understand why the professional painters who come into the coffee shop each morning wear respectable white pants and shorts. It gives dignity to the untidy trade. It keeps your spirits up.
• People ask me a lot of irritating questions. When your life is uneventful, you start to meddle in lives of people who have more drama. I know this because I’ll have ordinary months in life, I corner someone with more action get the scoop. Since all of my friends, neighbors, and co-workers know my house is under construction, I get pegged with about 10 questions a day. Every day. I might be done with my remodeling by now if I didn’t have to stop and answer questions about why I’m not done yet.
• I spend all my money at Lowes. If you were to make a highlight reel of the last six months of my life, you would see lots of boring footage of me looking for things on the isles of Lowes. Just me standing there silent for three minutes, scanning the wall for the right electrical outlet. Then you’d see more footage, except this time I’m swiping my credit card again and again and again. Here’s your warning: over the course of a house remodel, you’ll make 100s of trips to Lowes and spend a mind-blowing amount of money. It might make you feel better if you invest in stock of the closest hardware store before you begin remodeling.
• I won’t be around to enjoy it. Dad encouraged me early in the construction by saying, “When this is all done, you can enjoy it for years.” I wish! Although I enjoy working on my home, I’ve postponed the true pleasure of living in my home for at least another decade. I’m not settling in this house. So any work I do here is for someone else to enjoy. I’m a contractor hired by the future home owner. So if you don’t enjoy the trades of home remodeling, your only motivation will be financial gain. And life always manages to suck when you are chasing money.
• I feel like my life is spinning out of control. I cannot overstate this. The home is where you are sheltered from the dramas of the world throws at you. When your house is in disarray, it only adds the drama. If you live in the house you’re remodeling, you must have an endless source of mental and emotional fortitude. You have to get up in the morning and be okay with the fact that there is sawdust underneath your cereal bowl as your pour milk over your Cheerios.

I am lucky because I’m married to an awesome woman. We’re on the same team when it comes to overcoming the obstacles in life. If you and your spouse are in a rocky point in your relationship, fixing your home will break your relationship. Get your priorities straight and given your marriage an extreme makeover first.

7. Tempe Marketplace in Tempe, AZ
Cool Points: 3 out of 5
Online: http://www.tempemarketplace.com/

I’ve been looking forward to this development for a long time, and now that it is here, I am underwhelmed. What bothers me the most about this place is that it the big block retailers (in lighter blue along the bottom of the image) are separated by a massive parking lot from the more pedestrian-friendly shopping area (dark blue). When you visit Tempe Marketplace, you pretty much have to choose which place you’re going to shop. There’s no attempt to connect the two types of shopping. No crosswalks, no bridges, no nothing. Just a car-pedestrian incident waiting to happen.

Another problem with the big box retailers is that they punish the good vibes of Rio Salado Parkway. The drive from the nearby Mill Avenue shopping district on Rio Salado Parkway is a lot of fun. You get views of the Tempe Town Lake, “A” Mountain, the ASU Sun Devil Stadium, and the greens of Karsten Golf Course. The whole scenic drive turns bad once you cross McClintock and arrive at Tempe Marketplace. You’re now in a back alley.

On a visual note, I don’t think this place will weather well with time. Its full of visual excitement and hype at the moment, but this whole circus of color could get real tacky real fast.

What keeps me from giving this place a 1 or a 2 is that it is built on what used to be a toxic dump that existed beneath a patchwork of unkept businesses, junkyards, and other eyesores. If the developers didn’t come in and clean up the mess, who would have? Plus, I give extra points to developers who invest in infill projects. You don’t have to go to the far edges of town to build something new for the community.

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8. DC Ranch Market Street
Scottsdale, AZ
Cool Points: 5 out of 5
Online: http://www.beonmarketstreet.com/welcome/index.php, more on DC Ranch http://www.dcranch.com/

Although this is a significantly smaller project than the others that I’ve featured here, DC Ranch’s Market Street in North Scottsdale is brilliant. Without Market Street, the communities of Silverleaf and DC Ranch would feel like lifeless suburbs pressed against the base of a mountain.

The creative team behind Market Street incorporated every detail that makes a shopping area livable:

• Narrow streets paved with bricks
• Parks with benches, tables, and umbrellas
• String lights
• Statues and fountains
• Sidewalks with shade
• Street-side parking
• Regional architecture
• Unobtrusive signage
• Native plants
• Covered bridges
• Unique retailers

Not only is it a charming gateway for the homeowners in the McDowell Mountains, Marketstreet is a destination for anyone in the city looking for something creative to do with their afternoon. I know the last sentence sounded like I work for a marketing company, but sometimes the hype is the truth.

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9. Victoria Gardens, Rancho Cucamonga, California
Cool points: 5 out of 5
Online: http://www.victoriagardensie.com/Earlier this month I made a trip to Rancho Cucamonga in inland Southern California. A group of us had lunch at a restaurant in the Victoria Gardens, a shopping center designed to look and operate like a classic downtown: tidy storefronts with wide sidewalks lined with broad leaf tree and classic street lamps. Cafes and coffee shops were spaced strategically throughout the center to give shoppers a place to relax and enjoy people watching.

Notice the fountains, plants, lights, and harmonious storefronts.

If you take a close look at the image below you can see that North Main Street and South Main Street allow shoppers to cruise a little bit before they decide to shop.

How you park matters. I’m not promoting the idea that “you are what you drive”, but part of the fun of owning a stylish car is that people get to see you in it. It’s the same reason you like to be seen when you are wearing your best clothes. You feel good because you look your best. One of the biggest let-downs of owning my first new car after college was that nobody ever saw me in it. It was just me, one dude driving back and forth between my apartment and work. People like the occasion to show off their car. This is the primary reason why people use valet. The reason every other video on MTV features a rapper getting out of his car in front of a sidewalk full of people is because we all think it’s cool!

Practically speaking, street-side parking can’t accommodate the horde of people you want to attact to you shopping center. Victoria springs tucked the useful acreage on the outskirts of “downtown.”

When you put all of this together, Victoria Gardens had the same utility as a typical shopping mall, but without the icky feelings of commercial claustrophobia. Impressive!

4. Biltmore Fashion Park in Phoenix, AZ
Cool Points: 5 out of 5
Online: http://www.shopbiltmore.com/, for redelopment news http://www.shopbiltmore.com/redevelopment/shopbiltmore/default.asp

What you are looking at here is an outdoor mall is similar to The Block at Orange. The central corridor runs beneath the words “Biltmore Fashion Park” is a grassy stretch with sidewalks on either side. It’s fun to look into the stores when you are on the outside, but, it’s also pleasant to be inside the store and look out onto the grass. That’s a lot better than the same instance in a typical mall. There, you look out of the store and see herds of people, a kiosk selling cell phone accessories, and then another storefront with people looking back at you.

The Biltmore adds to the community around it.

I know “parking” is a dull subject, which is exactly why it’s important to address here. Parking is a necessary evil, so it’s important to do it right. The long white structure rectangle on the top is a multi-level parking structure. It’s hidden behind the shopping area, so you don’t have to look at it when you are driving by. The limited amount of parking in between Camelback Road and the shopping center makes The Biltmore more approachable. It’s hard to drive by without wanting to pull in and explore. Part of the traffic problem at that the intersection of 24th and Camelback is that people miss their green lights because they are too busy gawking at the action.

When you are driving on 24th Street (up or down) or on Camelback Road (left or right), The Biltmore is interesting to look at. You don’t even have to go inside and shopping to enjoy the place; this is in stark contrast to Gwinnett Place Mall. The store fronts open up to the grassy interior walkway, but they also open up to the street and the parking lot. It’s just a cool looking group of buildings.

Of all the shopping areas I’ve written about here, Biltmore Fashion Park is the most ambitious project because of it’s history. It was originally built in the early 1960s with a bit of a futuristic Jetson’s vibe to it.

It’s been under a massive facelift for the past year or so. It looks great. I am impressed that they dug a pedestrian walkway underneath Camelback Road to people staying at the hotels (below Camelback) to get easy access to the shopping and restaurants at The Biltmore. Or if you are spending a day shopping, you can unload your stuff in the car and then catch a movie at the Promenade on the south side of the street. I’ve read that they are building residential towers and more office spaces to create that synergy of live/work/play.

The blue border defines the Biltmore Fashion Park. The two towers on the left are expected to be completed in the future.

Since the company is owned by nearby Scottsdale Fashion Center, they’ve traded around some stores to create an ideal line-up to cater to specific audiences. From what I’m seeing, The Biltmore is aiming for the young and rich–two words that rarely fit together in reality. But the idea is appealing to everyone, so I imagine this place will get more popular by the day.

A bonus is that it’s not too far from the center of town: 8.1 miles from the heart of Phoenix.

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5. The Forum at Carlsbad in Carlsbad, California
Cool Points: 4 out of 5
Online: http://www.forumatcarlsbad.com.

I go to The Forum all the time when I’m in San Diego. It’s only a few minutes from the coast, so this area keeps the temperate climate year round. It’s sheltered on the left by a low mountain range (notice the trees). On the right is plenty of green to separate the whole center from the noisy commercial corridor: El Camino Real. These trees create a haven so that you don’t feel like your stuck in just another square in the endless grid of shopping in SoCal.

The main appeal to The Forum is the experience of driving into the center on the L-shaped main street. (Okay, maybe it’s a reverse L-shape.) Part of the fun of finding a parking space is gawking at the store fronts, watching people, and being seen in your car. You just feel cool. You can pull off to the right up to the sidewalk, or park in the center spaces. The larger parking lots are on the upper corners, then more on the south side.

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6. Kierland Commons in Phoenix/Scottsdale, Arizona.
Cool Points: 3 out of 5
Links: http://www.kierlandcommons.com

I’ve only shopped here a couple times in the past few years, but Kierland Commons has all the attributes of a successful shopping center: mix of shops and restaurants, wide sidewalks, leafy trees, street lamps, park benches, street-side parking, and and inviting store displays.

It’s a good place to cruise.

Livin’ Large in No Sco (that’s North Scottsdale)

The overflow parking allows people to get in and out of the big stores, but the lots are divided up so that it doesn’t make you feel like you pulled up to Wal Mart.

I would give this place more cool points, but it’s just too far away from me to judge accurately. I have a prejudice against areas in my city that are too far from the center of the city: 20.8 miles.

Note: I never imagined that I would end up doing a 4-part series on shopping centers. This started as a simple journal about my frustration with the inhumanity of malls, and it developed into a thesis of sorts.

I spent most of my childhood in the 1980s, and nobody thought the idea of a suburb was a bad thing. Actually, everyone was a big fan. Almost every movie or TV show in that decade was obsessed with the the suburb and it’s grand landmark: The Mall. If you believed what you saw on TV (which I did), the mall was the center of every young person’s glorious social life. That’s where you hung out with friends, bought clothes, and met pretty girls. I knew the mall is where I was meant to be.

The only time I encountered this magical place was once a year when my family traveled two hours south to Gwinnett Place Mall, about 30 minutes north of Atlanta. My young teenage mind got dizzy off the sites and sounds of the place. I frolicked in every single acre of paradise.

By the time I was in college, I was too cool for the mall (just like every other kid raised in the 1980s who came of age in the 1990s.) But on the rare occasion that I absolutely had to go to the mall, I was got frustrated by the traffic, the game of finding a parking space, and the mindless consumerism. I preferred the quaint corners of the leafy streets of the city. Areas like Little Five Points, Virginia Highland, and Midtown. I couldn’t understand why anyone would shop anywhere else.

When I traveled, I was drawn to cities that had vibrant street life: New York, Chicago, Boston, and to a degree, New Orleans. I loved walking past the sidewalk cafes and exploring the stores. I discovered that one thing all these cities had in common was they were built before the invention of the automobile. With few exceptions, every other city in America boomed after people decided they’d rather drive somewhere than walk. This is why we have highways, exit ramps, large parking lots–all the familiar topography of a suburb.

I’m old enough to know that suburbs can be very good places to live, often with good schools, low crime rates, and more space for a grassy backyard. I’ve also witnessed the wide variety of “neighborhood shopping centers” that can make or break a neighborhood. I’ve experienced first hand that a shopping center can enhance the livability of the neighborhood, or exploit the residents for financial gain.

I should note that I’ve had no formal education on architecture, city planning, or commercial Real Estate development. Everything that I’ve written here is from the perspective of someone who loves city life, and wants people to be happy as they live out there days.

I’m so convicted about this that I did some work on Google maps people could get a bird’s eye view. Although the images might at first seem boring, they tell the unique story of the entire experience of shopping.

Here are 10 examples of how you make a large shopping center outside of downtown.

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1. Gwinnett Place Mall, Duluth, GA
Cool Factor: 0 out of 5
Online: http://www.simon.com/mall/default.aspx?ID=205Here you see a gazillion square feet of climate-controlled hell wrapped in acres of hot pavement. You can see a few rows of trees to break up the barron parking lot, but it’s hardly enough. Between your car and the mall’s doors is a brutal game of Man v. Machine where you try not to run over. Seriously, where are the sidewalks for the humans and the baby carriages?

The thought of driving the loop around the mall makes me want to vomit.

Although you can’t see it from the photo, the entryways into the mall are simple doors that allow you to pass from the parking lot into the store. There’s no “front porch” to make the transition more friendly. If it’s like any other mall built in the same era, there are no front display windows to draw you inside. From the outside, the mall is ugly and completely at odds with the natural surroundings. Essentially, it’s cubic structure of concrete built on top of acres of pavement. What could be more lifeless?

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2. The Block at Orange, Orange Country, California
Cool Factor: 2 out of 5
Online: http://www.simon.com/mall/default.aspx?ID=1236I first visited The Block in 2000 or 2001 when I spoke at an event at nearby high school. Then earlier this year I visited it a second time for Adam and Carolyna’s wedding rehearsal dinner at Dave and Busters.

The Block at Orange has a taste of the visual intensity of Times Square in NY.

You can see that it’s still a mall, except it’s divided up so you can walk outside.

It’s fun to walk in between the stores while enjoying the nice weather. There is plenty of tree shade too so I imagine it never gets too hot. The bad thing is that it still has a mall’s parking lot. The parking lot is an uninterrupted band of concrete that circles the shops. Once you get out of your car, there’s no excitement until you escape the parking lot. But still, everyone I know feels cooler at The Block than a typical mall.

But we’re not quite there.

 

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3. Clay Terrace in Carmel, IN
Cool Points: 4 out of 5
Online: http://www.simon.com/mall/default.aspx?ID=860Clay Terrace wasn’t finished when I drove through one early morning a few years ago, but it seemed like it was destined to become the charming downtown marketplace for the upscale town of Carmel.

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I found this picture online. I’m loving the classic architectural details of the subdued storefronts.

The central boulevard keeps drivers going slow with the two loop-around circles. (I don’t know what they are called.) And how much more fun is that? It’s what makes Columbus Circle in Manhattan such a whimsical place. It’s a Merry Go Round for adults.

There is plenty of street-side parking off of Clay Terrace Blvd, much like what you see off of downtown streets. People love to park in these spots. It’s a little silly to write a sentence like that, but there’s something about street-side parking that is more exciting than parking in the car pasture of a typical shopping mall.

A new downtown for Carmel, Indiana.

There are plenty of of spaces in the parking lots on the outskirts, but they are divided up to not seem so overwhelming. The stripes of white that extend out from Clay Terrace Boulevard are probably sidewalks, the ultimate courtesy to pedestrians. This shopping center must be a huge asset to the community. There is not a single Realtor in Carmel that doesn’t first drive down Clay Terrace Boulevard before showing an out-of-town buyer their next new house.

While Candyce was at Mass on Sunday I watched an episode of MTV Cribs dedicated to 50 Cent’s house outside of Hartford, Connecticut. (I’m pretty sure he bought this from Mike Tyson’s ex-wife.) I should start by explaining that this estate is massive: 17.6 acres, 48,515 square feet, 19 bedrooms, 19 full and 16 half bathrooms. MASSIVE!

 

Does 50’s house make him not gangster?

 

If I were in high school living with Mom and Dad, I might be jealous of somebody with a house that big. It’s the ultimate stage of glamor and success. But anybody who owns a house watched that episode with a different perspective:

1. Maintenance. I know 50 isn’t pushing a vacuum around a house that’s half the size of a Target store. That means he has to hire people to maintain the inside and outside of his house. Think of the chores: mow the lawn, spray for bugs, maintain the pools, remove dead tree branches after a storm, repair cracks in the driveway, change light bulbs, etc. The list goes on and on.

   Since 50 doesn’t want to manage armies of workers, my guess is he got smart and hired full-time estate manager dude. At the end of the day, 50 has to sit down with this guy in the kitchen to find out what’s going down around the house. I’ve never seen this meeting in a rap video. Gangsters aren’t supposed to know about the flowers being planted in the pots next to the front door. That kind of stuff is just supposed to happen.

   

   17.6 acres of manual labor.

2. Relationship drama. My house is just under 3,000 square feet, so it would take 12 houses just like mine to match the size of 50 Cent’s house. Even with it’s diminutive size, Candyce and I get in at least one fight each week day because we’re trying to communicate when we’re in separate rooms. After 30 seconds of playing shout tag, we end up in the same room exasperated and angry:
   

   What were you saying? I answered you didn’t you hear me?!

   It’s gotten a little better each month since we’ve been married, but I can’t lie and say that we have this whole thing worked out. We get mad a lot.

   Now, if 50’s girlfriend is at the house, how are they supposed to talk to each other? If she makes a “quick trip” to the kitchen 300 paces away, how is 50 supposed to find her when she gets lost? It’s a funny scene to imagine 50 and his hotty girlfriend trying to find one another, almost like a hip hop version of Marco Polo or hide-and-go-seek. What if half way through this game 50 stumbled upon a groupie from 3 nights ago who got lost on her way to get a get a blanket from the closet? Wouldn’t that be embarrassing.

   Let’s presume 50 is monogamous. If he and Hotty want to keep the relationship sweet, the most reasonable solution is for both of them to carry walkie-talkies everywhere they go. When 50 struts to the game room to get a lighter for his cigar, he’s got a walkie-talkie in one hand. When she steps into the boudoir to slip into something more comfortable, she’ll come back to bed carrying a walk-talkie. That’s just not sexy. No gangster points here.

3. Losing Things. When I lived in a 1000 square foot apartment after college, I never lost things. I lose things ALL THE TIME now. And it’s not because I’m losing my mind; there is just a lot of space to devour my stuff. Poor 50 Cent. If he loses his keys in his 50k square foot home, he won’t make that 10 O’clock meeting in the city. He’d be smart to chain down his TV remotes. Because once they’re gone, they’re gone! He’s stuck watching the same channel because he’s too tired to make the 40 foot roundtrip to the TV and back. No gangster points there.
4. Bumps in the night. Anybody who owns a home knows what it’s like to hear a bump in the night. Even if you have a security system, you hear something like that and assume that somebody is breaking into your house. With a modest sized home, you can pick up your baseball bat, do a couple laps around the house, and be back in bed in under 2 minutes. It could take 50 Cent 45 minutes to scope out the joint. He might even have to stop half way through the rounds just to make coffee to stay alert.Now that I think of it, I bet 50 doesn’t even hear most of the bumps in the night. Again, if you consider how large the house is, it’s the equivalent of me waking up at night because I heard my neighbor knock over a vase 3 houses down the street. So in 50’s palatal home, people could come and go as they please. There might be members of Eminem’s D12 setting up camp in a remote corner of the west wing. Really, Kanye West could break in and film a music video while 50 is fast asleep. To give Kanye the gangster points he deserves, you’ll have to take ‘em away from 50.

I guess 50 Cent has realized his house is not that gangster, which is why it is for sale for a cool $18,500,000. I doubt 50 will get that much money for it, but he only paid a modest $4,100,000 for it back in 2003, so whatever he gets for it will give him a hefty profit.

Now that’s gangster.