| rev:text
| - Tempe Marketplace is Desert Ridge's bigger, huskier, more intense yet slightly dumber brother. Made by the same development company, the layout of the place is similar (but worse) to D.R. with "The District" in the center, and the big stores surrounding it, separated by a vast impenetrable wasteland of parking lot. The District is an admirable concept I think. It's like a traditional mall but at least there's an attempt to move forward on it by making it outdoors? That's cool when it's nice out, but when it's 139 degrees out, the misters are in full amazon jungle force. The biggest gripe I have about the place is the layout of the place. The design is horrendous.
First of all, it just irritates me how the giant flashy signs face the 202, beckoning unknowing, random passersby to come shop there. Meanwhile, the entire shopping center's fat ass is planted firmly and stubbornly toward Tempe, the city it's supposed to represent. The drive past Tempe Marketplace on Rio Salado features a glorious view of the backs of Pier One and Old Navy and Target's loading docks. It's ugly. And most importantly, it didn't need to be designed that way.
Secondly, this place is one of the least pedestrian friendly strip malls in Tempe. Which is shitty because it's also one of the newest. Our planning and development should be propelling forward, not going backward. Does the developer know anything about the city it's in? Does it represent that? If you're going to create a mega structure like Tempe Marketplace, shouldn't it at least vaguely represent the qualities of its city? Tempe Marketplace is impossible to walk around when you're outside The District. If you wanted to, for example, walk from BevMo to Pier One, you must first throw yourself into a the middle of a harrowing situation. There are no well designed sidewalks or walkways across the meandering, confusing road systems. You must just walk across the parking lot. Between the speeding frat boys in Mustangs and the SUV driving soccer moms who've gotta get to Sport Chalet FAST and have no time for pedestrians, Tempe Marketplace simply does not account for two major facts about its environment, and thus its consumer: people will be walking, and people will be riding bikes. And it didn't need to be designed that way.
And then there's Big Brother-esque advertisements that are going on via loud speaker all the time. What's up with that? I love the one with the most anglo sounding chick they can find harping about how great "San Feleep's" cafe is. You can't even pronounce the place's name right and you're doing an ad for it? But the music is hilarious. Sometimes it sounds like a gay club circa 1992 out there. It's like all Whitney and Technotronic. Makes me grin.
The good thing is that the Orbit (Earth) goes through T.M. The bad thing is that the Light Rail should have been a bit more accessible. Other than that, hopefully Tempe Marketplace can be an example of what not to do for other developers of similar places in the future.
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