The Toledo Blade, August 12, 2000
After packing 'em in at Maumee's 18-screen theater, it's no surprise that National Amusements now wants to dose its five-screen Secor Road Showcase Cinemas with steroids for the same result.
Well, maybe just as long as Southwyck offers quote-unquote art house movies, 13 more screens for Tom Cruise won't matter.
But for one group of people, the planned Showcase expansion is no entertainment issue. It's an urban-planning issue.
Remember Walk Westgate? This is a coalition of residents and businesses surrounding a 1950s-era West Toledo shopping center that, over time, has become an endless expanse of asphalt and commercial signage.
Organized this year by the University of Toledo's Urban Affairs Center, Walk Westgate aims to overturn the area's car-culture lifestyle with a redesign yielding pedestrian-friendly living.
The Urban Affairs Center has roped in Douglas Kelbaugh, a renowned urbanist and the new architecture dean at the University of Michigan, who speaks enthusiastically of "retrofitting" postwar shopping centers.
So the possibilities for getting the ugly out of Westgate seem endless. But organizers will begin to narrow the field next month, when Walk Westgate plans a public design charette.
National Amusement's plan for its Westgate-area theater, however - already on the Toledo-Lucas County Plan Commission agenda for Aug. 31 - worries District Councilwoman Tina Skeldon-Wozniak, a strong Walk Westgate advocate.
"I called them and said, 'This isn't gonna fly.' It puts parking up by the street. We want people to walk places, and if you have cars out front in a big lot, it discourages pedestrians."
The plan, says Ms. Skeldon-Wozniak, violates a key principle of New Urbanism, which gives priority to pedestrians and sidewalks by relegating cars and parking lots to the rear and sides of commercial sites.
"We asked them to look at it positively and invited them to bring their architect to Walk Westgate meetings, but they're not really cooperating," says Ms. Skeldon-Wozniak.
Toledo lawyer Bart Wagenman, who represents National Amusements, says the site plan includes walkways "defined by a raised elevation within the parking areas, and by trees all along them; so I should think it would be inviting to pedestrians."
His clients will show the plan at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday at a neighborhood meeting in the nearby Clarion Hotel. Mr. Wagenman says he didn't attend Walk Westgate's meeting yesterday because "I didn't want to confuse anyone by giving answers to questions best answered by representatives of National Amusements. "
Besides, he notes, his client's appearance before the plan commission is more formality than not: "The zoning ordinance requires commission approval when there are changes made to a parking lot serving a commercial area with more than 60 spaces. The permission being requested of the plan commission is really minor - but don't quote me on that."
Roberta de Boer's column appears Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. Readers may contact her at 724-6086, or e-mail roberta@theblade.com.