Journal of Architectural and Planning Research

19:1 (Spring, 2002) 30

WHAT MAKES BUILDINGS CATALYTIC?

HOW CULTURAL FACILITIES CAN BE DESIGNED
TO SPUR SURROUNDING DEVELOPMENT

Ernest Sternberg

Stadiums, museums, office buildings, and other fricilities are sometimes considered catalysts: they
receive public support in order to spur development in the immediate surrounding area. Focusing
only on cultural catalysts, this article draws on urban design literature, pedestrian research, and
consumer behavior research to suggest concepts through which facilities can be assessed Jbr their
catalytic potential and designed for greater catalytic impact. In general, planners should design
catalysts to create direct linkages between the catalyst and the commercial area it will serve, taking
into account walking distances, exit and entry points, crowd flow, and land uses. One of the planners
primary aims should be to create the vital street life that sustains nearby commerce. To do so, the
planner should seek to balance, on the one hand, the comings and goings that the facility generates
with, on the other, the crowding that the dependent commercial area can accommodate.

Copyright ( 2002, Locke Science Publishing Company, Inc.

Chicago, IL, IJSA All Rights Reserved
 Journal of Architectural and Planning Research
19:1 (Spring. 2(0)2) 31

INTRODUCTION

Catalysts are facilities - usually buildings that generate urban development in their immediate
surroundings. thereby meriting commiunity support. possibly in the form of public subsidies.
Throughout North America. such facilities receive public funds on the hope that they will revitalize
urban areas. This practice is now so widespread that it may be, in aggregate, second only to financial
incentives to business as the most expensive urban redevelopment technique in North America.

This article begins the search for guidelines by which to assess whether buildings are indeed properly
situated and designed to fulfill the catalytic claims that are made for them. The article focuses only on
a subset of catalytic facilities: cultural (sports and entertainment) facilities that cause surrounding
commercial development by generating pedestrian comings and goings. After reviewing the extent of
public investment in such facilities, the article suggests five ways in which they can spur surrounding
development. The rest of the paper proposes simple concepts through which these facilities can be
better planned to increase the catalytic effect. The concepts are drawn from diverse secondary sources
in urban design. pedestrian transportation research, and consumer behavior studies.

Among reputedly catalytic facilities. stadiums and arenas are the most widely publicized, but catalytic
claims are just as commonly made for convention centers, performing arts centers, and hotels.
Museums are increasingly important. ranging in varieties from children's museums to museums of
music (jazz. rock and roll), not to mention aquariums, zoos, and miscellaneous halls of fame. Office
and retail complexes, government buildings, transportation terminals, department stores, and even
supermarkets may also qualify. Sometimes, the catalytic effect is supposed to emanate from the build-
ing itself. regardless of function -usually a historic building, or at least an old one, which would
revitalize its urban surroundings, if it were only restored or adaptively reused. often at great expense.
Throughout the United States, everything from spanking new arenas to crumbling old railway sta-
tions. and from museums of hockey to museums of cheese, are developed on the promise that they
will be catalysts in urban revival.

The academic research on these investments has been highly skeptical, or downright scornful. Careful
analysis shows that the facilities, especially sports facilities, are very rarely as beneficial as the
proponents tout in feasibility studies (see articles in Noll and Zimbalist. 1997). Scholarly research
depicts the projects as government boondoggles. products of flawed consulting studies influenced by
the interested parties, and outcomes of manipulation by local coalitions of real estate owners, con-
struction lobbies. arts supporters. business boosters, and sports monopolies (for example, Bernstein,
1998: Sanders. 1998: Strom. 1999).

Despite the criticism. the projects continue to be built. In a world of media-saturated mass consump-
tion. large projects seem to fulfill some kind of continuing cultural need. Moreover, the argument for
catalysts has some plausibility. After all, commercial anchors are well demonstrated to benefit the
retail environment (Brown. 1993. 1994). It is reasonable to believe that. in some circumstances, cul-
tural facilities or other publicly supported buildings. too, could benefit nearby commerce.

Therefore. this article foregoes the derisive attitude and asks constructive questions: If such projects
are going to be built, then how do we assess whether any particular proposal truly has catalytic
potential'? And given a project. how do we design it to be as catalytic as possible'? If architects.
planners. and policy makers claim that a building is catalytic. they should have guidelines by which
to judge whether the building is properly selected. situated. and designed to fulfill these claims.

CATALYSTS EVERYWHERE

Those who may need to be convinced of the remarkable growth of investment in catalysts will find
no central data repository. The best data and the most thorough economic studies are on sports
facilities. Such data have been compiled by Timothy Chapin (1999) of the University of Washington
 Journal of Architectural and Planning Research
19:1 (Spring, 2002) 32

from national newspaper sources. He finds that 35 major league stadiums and arenas opened in the
1990s at a total cost of over $6 billion, with another 21 projects slated to open after 2000. Of the
funds for projects of the 1990s, nearly $3.3 billion, or 53%, was paid for or backed by public sources.
In addition, Chapin estimates that government expenditures for ancillary improvements, like roadwork
and parking facilities, raised the total public investment to over $4.25 billion. Almost always, public
support for the facilities rests in large part on the idea that they will contribute to economic revitaliza-
tion.

Museums and performing arts centers are not as well inventoried, and they usually cost less than
stadiums but are probably more numerous. Performing arts centers in Newark (New Jersey), Rich-
mond (California), and Skokie (Illinois); science centers in Phoenix and Kansas City; a jazz museum
in St. Louis; a vanguard art museum in Bilboa, Spain; and children's museums just about everywhere
- cultural facilities are increasingly seen as centerpieces of local redevelopment (Weber, 1997).

BUFFALO AND INDIANAPOLIS AS EXAMPLES

The City of Buffalo offers examples as good as any of high expenditures and high hopes placed on
projects that are thought to be catalysts. Among sports facilities, HSBC Stadium, home of the Buffalo
Sabres hockey team, was recently completed with extensive public funding, on the hope that it would
become a catalyst for waterfront revival. The minor-league baseball stadium now known as Dunn
Tire Park was put near downtown, once again for its presumed catalytic effects. There is perennial
talk of moving Bills Stadium from the suburbs to the city, both to retain the Buffalo Bills franchise
and to help revitalize the city.

Among historic buildings, architect E.B. Green's Market Arcade building, gorgeous but sparsely
tenanted, was brought back to life on the bet that it would help revitalize the downtown core.
Renovated about ten years ago, placed on the National Registry of Historic Places, and recently
expanded, Shea's Theater has become a vibrant cultural draw downtown. Louis Sullivan's Guaranty
Building was renovated for office use, but it has been plagued by vacancies. Frank Lloyd Wright's
Dwight D. Martin House is currently being restored, although here the potential activity-generating
effects are a problem, since the building resides in an established middle-class area where residents
fear traffic congestion. Funds are being sought to renovate H.H. Richardson's psychiatric complex,
again with the hopes of strengthening the nearby museum district, college, and residential area. The
art deco Central Terminal, the city's one time railway station, stands as an empty hulk in a declining
neighborhood; despite much speculation, funds for major renovation are not in sight.

Running out of space in its present quarters, the Buffalo Museum of Science has sought funds to
relocate downtown or at the waterfront, again on the promise of catalytic effects. Facing the loss of
its accreditation because of antiquated facilities, the Buffalo Zoological Society, operating one of the
oldest zoos in the U.S., is looking for a brand new site, and it too stresses its importance as an
activity generator. The Buffalo Naval and Servicemen's Park, which consists of three naval vessels
and a small building, retains public support because it brings visitors downtown. And local groups are
lobbying to establish a Buffalo children's museum, again with a view of broader public benefits in its
future surroundings. Long advocated and extensively studied, a proposal for an aquarium seems to
have met its demise. And there are still more: several downtown office buildings, airport expansion,
and a convention center, all receiving public support on the promise that they would help revive their
urban surroundings.

Buffalo is by no means the only place to bet on such projects. The City of Indianapolis has been a
major investor, as Mark Rosentraub (1997) attests through an inventory of the period 1974-1994. He
counts seven sports-related projects, five cultural projects (zoo, theater, museum), three hotels, four
retail complexes, eight office and infrastructure projects (though it is best to exclude them from the
definition of "catalyst"), and six other types of projects, for a total expenditure of $4.5 billion in 1995
 Journal of Architectural and Planning Research
19:1 (Spring. 2002) 33

dollars. Of this expenditure, over 44% came from federal, state, city, and philanthropic institutions
seeking urban redevelopment.

Given this level of public expenditure. some might expect that we would have taken pains to learn
what makes a facility catalytic. They are likely to be disappointed. Most of the research has been
economic. focusing on costs, benefits. and "multiplier effects." While such research has value in its
own right, it does not enter into questions of design -the design of the urban locations and built
forms that generate catalytic effects. At this level of inquiry, even basic terminology is vague and
convoluted.

"CATALYSTS" AND RELATED TERMS

In the sense in which the term is used here, "catalysts" can be traced to Wayne Attoe and Donn
Longa's Amer-ican Urban Architecture: Catalysts in the Design of Cities (1989), which made planners
and designers aware that projects were valuable not just in their own right but as spurs to further
building activity. The book taught the important lesson that, in urban areas suffering from stagnation
or decline. we should place a high priority on those catalytic developments that cause still more
development. While serving as an important starting point for discussion, the book defined catalysts
very broadly. It used the word to refer not only to built facilities but also to street and walkway
improvements. organizational arrangements between government and developers, and public policies
like financial incentives.

We can better specify what a "catalyst" is by comparing it to terms used to similar effect, including
anchor." "magnet." "activity generator." and "critical mass." A catalyst is necessarily also an "ac-
tivity generator" to some extent, but a distinction is worth maintaining. Too frequently, a facility like
a stadium or convention center generates lots of activity, without spurring nearby development
without being catalytic. Nor is a building necessarily more catalytic when it generates more activity,
since the cumulative presence of persons and their vehicles frequently causes traffic congestion that
dissuades visits to the surrounding environment. The designer of the catalyst must know when to
discourage or reroute activity that would be so congested that it would defeat the catalytic intent.

A catalyst is similar to an "anchor" (also known as a "magnet" in the U.K.), a word commonly used
in the real estate world to denote a commercial establishment that creates the traffic that allows other
establishments to survive. Examples include a supermarket in a roadside strip plaza, the traditional
department stores at the two ends of a dumbbell-shaped shopping mall, or in recent suburban malls,
the multiplex cinema alongside a food court. Research on anchors provides good insights on the
relationships between anchors and other retailers. Nonetheless, it is worthwhile to retain a distinction
between anchors and catalysts. It is the private developer's responsibility to recognize an anchor,
which is usually a commercial establishment whose traffic-generating effect benefits other retailers in
the same private parcel. Private land developers frequently provide favorable terms to draw to their
shopping parcel an anchor tenant. whose presence then attracts additional leasees. By contrast, the
term "catalyst" should be reserved for traffic-generating effects that can spur physical development
across private property lines and. therefore, raise questions of the merits of public subsidy. These
catalysts do include retail stores. but they also include a wider range of other facilities, including
transportation terminals and cultural facilities.

We should also distinguish between catalysts and critical mass. Urban planners often advocate public
investment in a facility because they believe it will contribute to a "critical mass" of commercial
activitv. This is usually not a well-defined concept. In aeneral, an ulban area may be said to have
achieved critical mass whien a set of establishments collectively generates vibrant activity that reinfor-
ces all its constituent members. Critical mass arises, therefore. from interrelationships among multiple
buildings and building uses. creating a vibrant financial district, downtown retail area, shopping strip,
or most importantly for present purposes. an urban entertainment district (see Beyard, et al., 1998).
 Journal of Architectural and Planning Research
19:1 (Spring, 2002) 34

It would not make sense to say that a single catalyst in itself creates critical mass. Critical mass
always depends on complementary and supplementary relationships among multiple establishments.
Nor are catalysts essential for critical mass. An area can become vibrant and successful just through
the aggregate presence of many small establishments, none of which qualifies as a catalyst. Yet, in
the many urban areas seeking redevelopment, such an aggregation of small businesses is missing or
inadequate. Properly chosen, situated, and positioned, catalytic establishments can help create critical
mass where none is likely to arise through conventional incremental means.

In an incipient urban entertainment district, a theater or concert hall can help sustain a collection of
bars, nightclubs, and gift shops, while those retail businesses in turn help generate the traffic that
sustains the catalyst. Therefore, catalysts do not in themselves create critical mass out of nothing.
Critical mass always arises from interrelationships among multiple establishments, among which one
or more may be catalytic.

CATALYTIC EFFECTS VERSUS MULTIPLIER EFFECTS

While it is an urban design concept, the catalyst is also often taken as a subject of applied economic
analysis, often through the technique of the multiplier. It is usually with this technique that local
governments, interest groups, and chambers of commerce justify public support for facilities, and also
with this technique that academic researchers find such facilities wanting (see the articles in Noll and
Zimbalist, 1997). However, as we will see momentarily, it is a mistake to confound the multiplier
effect with the catalytic effect; to do so creates much confusion.

A multiplier is a measure of the indirect expenditure generated by each dollar of expenditure in the
proposed facility. By this kind of accounting, if a million-dollar investment in a facility generates a
million dollars of revenues, which go as payments to investors, employees, construction workers, and
companies supplying goods and services, and they in turn spend still another million in the locality,
then the initial investment had a multiplier of 2. Used to analyze catalytic buildings, the concept is,
however, quite problematic. After all, multiplier effects can occur anywhere in the region or even the
world. A sports star employed at the stadium may spend his earnings near the stadium to purchase a
meal, creating a small nearby multiplier effect, but very likely spends much more on a suburban
home far from the stadium, and puts his funds in an investment portfolio that has nothing at all to do
with the region, much less the stadium's direct surroundings, though all his expenditures count as
multipliers.

To be sure, the study of multiplier effects could focus only on economic effects in the direct physical
surroundings. Even this restricted use of the technique would not explicate catalytic effects because it
measures the facility's effects solely in monetary terms. Funds are fungible, and the sources of
economic change in a community are many and varied. Since studies of multipliers look only at those
effects measurable in money terms, they provide no lessons on hovw a facility actually exerts its
effects on surrounding development -no lessons on palpable connections through which a building
interacts with its surroundings. Indeed, multiplier effects must be clearly distinguished from catalytic
effects. Whereas a study of multiplier effects measures abstract waves of expenditure, a study of
catalytic effects should examine actual interrelationships between a building and its surroundings.

FIVE WAYS IN WHICH BUILDINGS SPUR SURROUNDING DEVELOPMENT

It is in the study of interrelationships among structures that we can find the theoretical foundations for
a study of catalysts. In a world of market-driven real estate consisting of discrete private properties,
on which owners make self-interested decisions, the catalyst introduces an important noncommodifi-
able element (see Sternberg, 1993; 2000). The catalytic property plays roles in urban life, not only for
what it does for its owners and occupants, but also for the interrelationships it generates with the
 Journal of Architectural and Planning Research
19:1 (Spring. 2002) 35

public realm and with other buildings. Our task is to explain just how the catalytic building enters
into relationships with its built surroundings.

In examining the catalytic relationships, we should omit from consideration the various additional
purposes for which the public agencies may subsidize a private facility. They may do so to encourage
region-wide economic growth (not just development in the facility's immediate vicinity), corporate
relocation. community prestige. coxerage in the national media, and improved cultural life, or may
just respond to the voters' simple desire to have such a facility. To understand catalysts per se, we
should disregard these other roles that public investments play and concentrate on only one: the
ability to spur surrounding physical development. The catalyst can achieve this in five ways.

The first and most important way is by generating comings and goings: drawing people through the
urban environment into the facility and later discharging them back into the environment, creating
opportunities in both occasions for the visitors to patronize other buildings. If this activity is indeed to
spur further land and building development, then the building must be properly sited, designed, and
linked to its surroundings. As compared to the analyst of multiplier effects, the analyst of catalytic
effects must be ready to examine the pathways, distances. starting and ending points, and retail des-
tinations through which the catalyst connects (or fails to connect) to surrounding establishments.

A building can exert its catalytic effect in other ways as well. To urban designers like Edmund Bacon
(1974). a building exerts a second category of effects on other buildings through the mediation of
builders and architects. When forcefully designed and positioned, the building influences the thoughts
and motives of planners. designers. and their clients, affecting their decisions about the forms and
positions of future buildings. thereby shaping the patterns of development. Third, a building may
serve as an amenity, affecting passers-by and attracting them, even if they do not enter the building.
The building's distinctive and noble character, along with its capacity to reveal a view, complement a
streetscape. fit with or rebel against surrounding buildings, and provide outdoor shelter all help create
a public amenity that spurs additional development, even if the building is simply meant for its
owner's private purposes. Fourth. the building's presence may shape investors' perceptions, increas-
ing confidence and prompting additional investment. especially if the building replaces a previous
desultory landscape or a previous condition of uncertainty. Fifth, the building's signification (its being
a theater rather than a meat-packing plant. its having been built in a certain style, etc.) may reinforce,
or detract from, the surrounding area's thematic features.

GENERATING PEDESTRIAN TRAFFIC

These enumerated means of exerting catalytic effects have in common that they are experientially
palpable relationships. dependent on location, distance, theme, form, and design. Though all are im-
portant ways in which buildings become catalytic, this article focuses only on the first way: on how
buildings affect their surroundings by generating comings and goings.

To be sure, all buildings generate such effects to some extent -even a single-family detached
residence generates traffic affecting its surroundings. In the world of urban design, this is already an
old lesson. Most famously, Jane Jacobs (1961) saw in combinations of varied small buildings the
sources of urban vitality, as many people walked from one residence and store to another. And
William H. Whyte (1980) has found through observation that street design and building placement are
essential to the creation of vibrant street life. We know from these sources that fine-grained juxtaposi-
tions of buildings with mixed uses and good street design generates a vital street life that is good for
the local economy (Rowley. 1996). This is a concept that recent "neotraditionalist" or "new urbanist"
designers have embraced.

As a group. these designers and critics are almost exclusively concerned with aggregates of small
buildings. and are, if anything. averse to larger facilities, viewing them in light of modernist
monolithic buildings that were unresponsive to their environment. Though that perception is still too
 Journal of Architectural and Planning Research
19:1 (Spring, 2002) 36

often correct, it is also, when taken to an extreme, an unfair prejudice. Large facilities exert their
effects on their surroundings more intensely than modest, small scale buildings do, but these are
differences in degree. Buildings that we call catalysts are those at the upper end of this continuum.
They too can reinforce a street and support a good street life if properly designed for that purpose.
But how do we situate and design facilities that generate the comings and goings that spur surround-
ing development?

ELEMENTS OF THE CATALYTIC EFFECT

Though there is some economic research on impacts of public facilities on surrounding areas (see
Austrian and Rosentraub, 1997), very little examines the catalytic effects in which we are interested.
To get at this kind of effect, we must infer from research meant for different purposes. By far the
most productive is research on shopper behavior, retail marketing, and the micro-geography of retail
location, excellently summarized by Stephen Brown (1993, 1994) with extensive lists of further sour-
ces, along with research on pedestrian behavior. A review of the empirical research reveals the fol-
lowing catalytic elements, which may seem quite simple, but are nonetheless too often forgotten in
practice:
* The facility must be near commercial establishments (or commercial sites) that could benefit
from the catalytic effect. Research on shopping anchors shows definitively that anchors do
work in attracting shoppers. In shopping centers, around 80% of shoppers indicate that they had
an anchor, such as a department store, as their main destination. Other shopping within the
shopping center tends to be derivative and secondary because it is dependent on the presence of
the anchor (Brown, 1994). Since this is retail research, its implications for cultural or sports
catalysts are not conclusive, but it does imply that, at a minimum, the proposed catalyst must
be near commercial establishments or near an area in which such establishments could arise. A
facility cut off from surroundings, as by highways, drastically lessens its catalytic effect.

* The facility must be linked over a critical short distance to a concentration of commercial
venues. Usually, these will be retail establishments located on one or more shopping streets.
Consumer research over more than half a century demonstrates that shoppers generally prefer
concentrations of stores in close proximity for comparison shopping of similar goods, for com-
plementary shopping (flower shop and grocery, theater, and restaurant), for creation of a bus-
tling commercial environment, and for convenience (Brown, 1994). Though the implications
for entertainment areas around cultural catalysts are not fully clear, we can conclude at a mini-
mum that the catalyst must be closely linked to a concentration of commercial venues.

* The venues must be within walking distance of each other. Among those who drove to the
catalytic facility, those who re-enter the car after their visit, as compared to those who take a
brief walk around, are far less likely to patronize a nearby ancillary venue. Once in their car,
their choices for convenient ancillary visits expand to include the entire city or region. Though
these car-based visits may benefit the larger urban region, they are far less likely to stimulate
the facility's immediate surroundings. Therefore, the catalyst's effects on its surroundings must
occur primarily through pedestrian flows. A long history of research on pedestrian behavior
shows that pedestrians, including shoppers, will walk up to about 700 feet, after which the
willingness to walk falls off rapidly (Elkington, McGlynn, and Roberts, 1976; Pushkarev and
Zupan, 1975). This distance is basic in designing the linkage between the catalyst and its
dependent venues.

* Entrance and exit points shape the pattern of pedestrian traffic. Research shows that shoppers'
movements are heavily influenced by the locations of parking lots, transit stations, and building
entrances (Brown 1993, 1994). It follows that the designer of the catalyst must pay close
attention to the catalytic facility's entrances and to the locations of parking lots and transit
stations relative to the facility. For example, a parking lot serving an entertainment district
might be situated at one end of a commercial avenue that leads to the catalyst, the visitors'
 Journal of Architectural and Planning Research
19:1 (Spring. 2002) 37

main destination. In turn. one of the catalytic building's entranceways could be oriented back
toward the avenue. while another entranceway leads at an oblique angle toward a secondary
catalvst. requiring the visitor to traverse a triangular path- perhaps one lined with shops -in
order to return to the parking lot.

The linkage between facilitY titid commercial venues nmuist be designed to motivate movement.
Though urban designers have long known this, research now confirms that pedestrians prefer
interesting and reassuring streets those with a line of active shops -over vacant and
uninteresting ones (Shriver. 1997: Loutzenheiser. 1997). Long blank walls, dark spaces, long
gaps. expanses of parking lots. and formidable highway crossings must be avoided. Secondary
attractions or exit and entrance points must be situated, with respect to the catalyst, so that they
motivate pedestrian movement through the shopping area.

The catalyst mnust attract anld emlit attenidees at a sufficient rate to stimulate commerce in the
linked shopping areai. In studies of pedestrian movement, flow is defined as the number of
persons crossing a point during a given time. According to standards provided by Harris and
Dines (1998: sec. 340). average pedestrian walking speed is about 260 feet per minute (though
a slightly lower figure. a flow of 250 feet per minute, may be more appropriate in shopping
areas). Given a certain number of attendees emitted from the facility, flow depends on weather,
distance from the facility to parking and transit, the length of the shopping area through which
they walk, propensity to window shop and patronize business establishments, and the width of
the pedestrian pathway.

The flowt oJpeople firomnthe catalyst to linked venues must generate pedestrian density (as
mleasured in space per person) that makes the street vital, without causing excess crowding.
Urban designers (Jacobs. 1961: Whyte. 1980) have long held that the presence of people on the
street in itself provides an incentive for still more people to join, but the authors have generally
not specified the desirable pedestrian densities and flow rates. Transportation research on
pedestrian behavior does provide such specifics, but it has usually been intended to specify
criteria for efficient pedestrian flow. not for outdoor vitality. Nonetheless, researchers Push-
karev and Zupan (1975. pp. 85-105) seem to be speaking of vital street life when they describe
pedestrian densities ranging from 60 to 24 square feet of space per person, which they label
constrained flow." At these densities. pedestrians must pay "constant attention" to and engage
in "interaction" with others (p. 88). Though less than ideal if the sole objective is efficient
movement. these densities are still in the safe and relatively comfortable range. As space per
person decreases below this range. flow is increasingly "crowded," then "congested," culminat-
ing in "jammed" conditions, which are dangerous. Though the research is imperfect for the
present purposes. we can infer that catalysts should be designed to generate a "constrained
flow" of 24 to 60 square feet per person. with 40 sq.ft. per person being a reasonable working
figure. Note that this is an average. Because elevators. street lights, and other factors tend to
generate waves (known as "platoons") of pedestrian movement, some parts of a street with this
average density will be much more crowded than other parts.

In concentrated pedestrian sh1oppinig areas, significant proportions of visitors patronize busi-

nesses. even if the! did not originiall/ come for that purpose. Once again, the published re-
search is on commercial shopping districts, not on areas stimulated by catalysts per se. Studies
of visitors to shopping malls show high rates of impulsive business patronization. For ex-
ample. Bloch. Ridgway. and Dawson (1994) show that over 70 percent of mall patrons buy
something. and nearly half make an unplanned purchase. though the propensity to impulsively
patronize shops varies widely among types of consumers. In malls having an entertainment
center. clients who visit the entertainment center stay longer, are more likely to spend money at
the food court, and spend somewhat less in department stores, as compared to clients who do
not visit the entertainment center (Talpade and Haynes, 1997). These research results are sug-
gestive but do not allow us to reliably specify a catalyst's potential effects on nearby busi-
nesses. In the illustrative cases below. this article estimates that 25% to 50% of a catalyst's
 Journal of Architectural and Planning Research
19:1 (Spring, 2002) 38

attendees patronize at least one business in a con-

centrated shopping street adjoining the catalyst. This
figure is speculative. To properly design the catalytic
relationship, planners should obtain patronization rates
from proper empirical research.

;w_
DESIGNING THE CATALYTIC RELATIONSHIP

Using these research results and estimates, we can explore the

connections between a catalyst and the collection of commer-
cial venues that it serves. Consider the simple schematic case
in Figure 1, where one catalytic facility (indicated by the star
symbol) adjoins one shopping block. The block is 500 feet
long, a distance short enough to be walkable for most people.
To motivate pedestrian movement, the exit and entry point-
the transit station (T) or parking lot (P) -is located at the
end of the shopping block directly opposite from the catalyst.
The configuration should be contrasted to the one commonly
found, in which the catalyst is isolated on its own platform, or
even surrounded by parking lots, ruining the catalytic effect
(Figure 2).

The street depicted in Figure I should contain the number of

storefronts that, added together, constitute the concentrated
shopping area favored by consumers. One block 500 feet long
could easily accommodate 20 to 30 storefronts, depending on
0______
iIIlL ~r
frontages. In the early stages of planning for the catalyst, we
would not expect the stores to be in existence yet, though it is
preferable if some businesses of potential interest to
pedestrians are already operating. The street should have the
commercial zoning, building stock, and vacant lots ap-
propriate for the eventual development of additional venues
when the catalyst opens. Preferably, the street should have no
conflicting uses, like blank-walled office buildings, factories,
parking lots (other than the one designated at the end of the 0 50 Feet
block), and so forth.
FIGURE 1. A catalyst linked to one
-1 ---;_ l1-L
This street should also have sidewalks wide enough to ac- -,pP-g -I-.
commodate peaks in pedestrian flow. What matters is the effective width that pedestrians can use
excluding a curb safety margin, street furniture, and provision for stationary window shoppers. Let us
assume that the street in Figure I has been designed for ample crowds: an effective sidewalk width of
20 feet on each side of the street, for a total of 20,000 square feet of pedestrian flow space.

These initial conditions allow us to begin designing the all-important catalytic scale at which a
facility will generate comings and goings that stimulate vitality on the street and commerce in the
stores. Assuming that comfortable, vibrant crowding is achieved at an average of 40 square feet per
person, we can calculate that the sidewalks described here can accommodate 500 pedestrians at any
one time.

Of course, not all attendees at the catalytic facility will linger on the shopping block and patronize
local businesses. At a walking rate of 250 feet per minute, these non-patrons will traverse the block in
two minutes. But others among the facility's attendees will slow down and become patrons. If the
patronization rate is expected to be 25%, then the planner should support a catalyst that will emit
2000 attendees onto the street. (If they are released from the catalyst over the course of several
 Journal of Architectural and Planning Research
19:1 (Spring. 2(0)2) 39

_V
-L ii

FIGLURE 2. A facilit% isolated from its stirroUnding.: Low carialvtic effect.

minutes. and if 75%c traverse the street without lingering, they would not cause over-crowding.) If
there are 25 stores on the block, these 500 patrons yield significantly more than 20 clients per busi-
ness establishment. because many will patronize more than one establishment.

This number of patrons emitted per evening at one facility could not fully sustain a block of retail
commerce: after all. the stores will also have to draw clients throughout the business day. But this is
to be expected. A catalyst only needs to stimulate and to contribute partially to a critical mass of
commerce: it should not be expected to be the sole sustainer of a critical mass.

Note that there are multiple combinatorial possibilities for generating a catalytic effect. For example,
rather than supplying one crowd of 2000, the facility could have an equivalent (or larger) effect by
supplying two crowds of 1000 each. say one in early evening and one in late evening each day. It
would also have the equivalent catalytic effect if it drew only 1000 attendees per day. but they had a
patronization rate of 50%/C. Four smaller facilities. each attracting an average of 500 attendees who
have an average of 50%c patronization rates would have double the catalytic effect and could poten-
tially support two shopping blocks. Indeed. these smaller catalysts are highly desirable, since they are
likelv to emit staggered or overlapping crowds and to make up for each other's attendance shortfalls,
and they open up the possibility that some clients will extend their length of stay by attending more
than one facility.
 Journal of Architectural and Planning Research
19:1 (Spring, 2002) 40

When we plan on multiple catalytic facilities,

the design problem becomes more complex.
These catalysts should be dispersed along a set
Li Li
of interconnected blocks, with transit stations
and parking structures arranged to create 500-

asn~~r]
700 foot walking distances, along dense com-
mercial streets (Figure 3). Though commonly
seen, several catalysts, small or large, grouped
into one defined area, and isolated from the rest
of the city by parking lots and highways, con-
stitute a fundamental design mistake (Figure 4).

In principle, the relationship between a catalyst

and its development area could be measured
with an index. But the index would have to be
carefully constructed. A facility drawing 35,000
attendees once a week would be far less
catalytic than five facilities each attracting 1,000
attendees each day, although both bring 35,000
visitors per week. The larger facility is inferior
because it fails to generate the continuous
vitality on which retail areas depend. Properly
I~~~ rx riim *
constructed, the index would give greater weight
to multiple facilities generating frequent (or bet-
ter, continuous) flows of small crowds than to
single facilities generating infrequent but mas-
sive flows. Lacking a validated index, we can
still take from this discussion the essential les-
son: in planning for catalysts, we must try to as-
sess the balance between catalyst and the com-
mercial area it is meant to stimulate.

CONCLUSIONS
1-~-
500 Feet
As we have seen, enormous public investment
goes into facilities on the explicit argument that FIGURE 3. Five catalysts arranged in an entertainment district.
they will generate surrounding development. But
the concepts listed above lead us to the practical conclusion that facilities built for this purpose vary
in their actual catalytic effects, and these effects are not necessarily correlated with the facility's cost.

Though extremely expensive, American football stadiums are made catalytic only with great difficulty
and in rare circumstances. They hold very few events, generate enormous congestion, require wide
safety zones (to allow rapid evacuation in case of emergency -see Geraint, 1997), and are often
surrounded by enormous expanses of parking. Development surrounding a large sports stadium is
nonetheless sometimes attributed to the stadium (as in Peterson, 1996), but it is more likely to have
occurred because of general urban growth and land demand, especially because stadium construction
uses up land or because of the infrastructure improvements put in place during stadium construction
-effects that could have been achieved at lower cost without a stadium. Major-league baseball
stadiums also try to internalize spin-off development by locating restaurants, gift shops, and amuse-
ments on premises, further reducing the facilities' catalytic effects. Minor-league baseball stadiums,
amateur athletic centers, and multi-use arenas are better, since they tend to be smaller and have more
events. As compared to any stadium, a collection of theaters or a multiplex cinema is likely to be
more catalytic, since it draws and lets out small, staggered crowds. Depending on the type, museums
have the further advantage in that they generate more or less continuous flows.
 Journal of Architectural and Planning Research
19:1 (Spring. 2002) 41

9 /~~~~~~~~~(

0 _ _ __

-- k
*t , .. ,, - 1.~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~..... ..........

Financial
Distr ict

FIGURE 4. Three cultural facilities isolated trom surroundings.

Though there is much legitimate skepticism about the economic benefits of these projects, they are
nonetheless commonly approved in North American localities. As the debate on a proposed catalyst
begins. the planner can enter the fray on economic issues of costs and benefits, but should also take a
position of advocacy for the kind of facility that is likely to be more catalytic. Once the project is
approved. the planner and architect's job is to help make the facility's design as catalytic as possible.
Since public subsidies are likely to have been a major part of the facility's financing package, design
professionals in municipal employment should have some leverage for influencing eventual design.

This article has proposed simple concepts by which projects can be designed to be more catalytic.
The most important guideline is that we should assess the potential catalyst according to its capacity
to generate comings and goings that will create 'constrained flow" of pedestrian traffic -a level of
flow consistent with street vitality - in an area with buildings and sites that can commercially
benefit from the catalyst's presence. There should be a proper balance between the flow the catalyst
can generate and the flow that the dependent shopping street can accommodate.

Given the enormous public investments placed in them, catalysts deserve the further empirical re-
search against which the concepts proposed here can be tested and refined. However, even with better
research results, planners will still have to match facilities with their surroundings through careful
on-site investigation and the exercise of design imagination.

REFERENCES

Attoe W. Longa D ( 1989) American urban architecture: Catalysts in the design of cities. Berkeley,
CA: University of California Press.

Austrian Z. Rosentraub MS (1997) Cleveland's gateway to the future. In RG Noll and A Zimbalist
(Eds.). Sports, jobs. and taxes: The economic impact of sports teams and stadiums.
Washington. DC: Brookings Institution Press. pp. 355-384.

Bacon EN ( 1974) The design of cities (revised ed.). New York: Penguin.
 Journal of Architectural and Planning Research
19:1 (Spring, 2002) 42

Bernstein MA (1998) Sports stadium boondoggle. The Public Interest 132(Summer):45-57.

Beyard MD, et al. (1998) Developing urban entertainment centers. Washington, DC: Urban Land
Institute.

Bloch PH, Ridgway NM, Dawson SA (1994) The shopping mall as consumer habitat. Journal of
Retailing 70(Spring)1 :23-43.

Brown S (1993) Micro-scale retail location: Cinderella or ugly sister? InternationalJournal of Retail
& DistributionManagement 21(7):10-19.

Brown S (1994) Retail location at the micro-scale: Inventory and prospects. Service Industries Jour-
nal 14(4):542-576.

Chapin T (1999) Stadia Home Page. http://weber.u.washington.edu/-tmchapin/stadia. Site accessed

April 1999.

Elkington J, McGlynn R, Roberts J (1976) The pedestrian:A literature review and annotatedbibliog-
raphy. London: Transport and Environment Studies.

Geraint J (1997) Stadia: A design and development guide, 2nd ed. Oxford: Architectural Press.

Harris WW, Dines NT (Eds.) (1998) Time-saver standardsfor landscape architecture, 2nd ed. New
York: McGraw-Hill.

Jacobs J (1961) Death and life of great American cities. New York: Vintage.

Loutzenheiser DR (1997) Pedestrian access to transit: Model of walk trips and their design and urban
form determinants around Bay Area rapid transit stations. Transportation Research
Record 1604:40-49.

Noll RG, Zimbalist A (Eds.) (1997) Sports, jobs, and taxes: The economic impact of sports teams and
stadiums. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press.

Peterson DC (1996) Sports, convention, and entertainment facilities. Washington, DC: The Urban
Land Institute.

Pushkarev B, Zupan JM (1975) Urban space for pedestrians. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Rosentraub MS (1997) Stadiums and urban space. In RG Noll and A Zimbalist (Eds.), Sports, jobs
and taxes: The economic impact of sports teams and stadiums. Washington, DC: Brook-
ings Institution Press, pp. 178-207.

Rowley A (1996) Mixed-use development: Ambiguous concept, simplistic analysis and wishful think-
ing? PlanningPractice and Research 11 (1):85-97.

Sanders HT (1998) Convention center follies. The Public Interest 132(Summer):58-72.

Shriver K (1997) Influence of environmental design on pedestrian travel behavior in four Austin
neighborhoods. TransportationResearch Record 1578:64-75.

Sternberg E (1993) Justifying public intervention without market externalities: Karl Polanyi's theory
of planning in capitalism. Public Administration Review March/April: 100- 109.
 Journal of Architectural and Planning Research
19:1 (Spring. 2(X)2) 43

Stemnberg E (2000) An integrative theory of urban design. Joutrnial of t/1e Americani Planninig Associa-
tioti 66:265-278.

Strom E (1999) "Let's put on a showv' Performing arts and urban revitalization in Newark. Joutrnal
of Urban Affaiirs 21:423-435.

Talpade S. Haynes J (1997) Consumer shopping behavior in malls with large scale entertainment
centers. Mid-Atlantic Journail of Business 33(June)29: 153-162.

Weber B (1997) Cities are fosterin- the arts as a way to save downtown. News York Times (national
edition) 18 November:A I.

Whvte WH (1980) The social lif qf

osall urb spaces. Washington, DC: Conservation Foundation.

Additional information may be obtained by writing directly to the author at the School of Architec-
ture and Planning. Hayes Hall. The University at Buffalo, State University of New York, Buffalo,
New York 14214. USA.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The author gratefull% acknowledges funding for this studv from the Graham Foundation tor Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts.
He thanks Hector Velasco for his help with the illustrations.

AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

Ernest Stemnberg is associate professor and chair of planning at the School of Architecture and Planning. The University at
Buffalo. State Universitv of NewN York. He is the author of The Economv of Icons: How Business Manuifactires Meanzing.
published by Praeger in 1999.

Mlanuscript rev isions completed 30 January 200)1.

COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

TITLE: What makes buildings catalytic? How cultural facilities

can be designed to spur surrounding development
SOURCE: Journal of Architectural and Planning Research 19 no1
Spr 2002
WN: 0210506061003

The magazine publisher is the copyright holder of this article and it

is reproduced with permission. Further reproduction of this article in
violation of the copyright is prohibited. To contact the publisher:
http://taz.tamu.edu/Press/japr2.html.

Copyright 1982-2002 The H.W. Wilson Company. All rights reserved.