THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, August 18, 1996 TAG: 9608170006
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J4 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Letter
LENGTH: 23 lines
The architect-romantics who came up with the ``alternative'' design for MacArthur Center are living in an alternative reality. I especially love the idea of asking Nordstrom to give up about 1,000 square feet of cubic wall-display space in favor of about 100 separate windowpanes.
Even better was the idea of reducing parking-garage space so that when I come shopping downtown with my three small children, I can enjoy the aesthetic benefit of parallel parking on a side street and the exciting prospect that inner-city youths might take time from heaving rocks through the windows of Nordstrom to relieve me of my shopping money.
Fortunately, I have no doubt that the developers of the mall have enough sense to build a concrete fortress with a secure parking garage that just might lure me away from my habitual half-hour drive to Lynnhaven Mall.
JILL BARRETT
Norfolk, Aug. 10, 1996 by CNB