The Magical ITE cake
When the Developer buys the cake, he gets to have it and eat it too
On one hand, the Developer tells us to believe the Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE) national standard traffic counts for his economically fictional "by-right" development plan (you know, the one with the 6-level underground parking garage below Warby Parker). But on the other hand, he tosses out the ITE standard for his proposed site and wants us to believe his "observed" traffic counts.
This will be a suburban-like shopping attraction with compact retail. The only difference between the proposed plan and a suburban strip center is that 750 parking spaces are underground instead of on a surface parking lot. So this Developer is tossing aside the national ITE standards and substituting his own fiction.
Gemma, Houndstooth Coffee, Bonobos, and Warby Parker are currently retail islands that are not regional destination points. The Developer wants to build a regional shopping attraction like the current Knox Street (and in fact, he's had his hand in the development of Knox Street as well).
The letter below is word-for-word from the Developer (we added the "Fiction" part).
Fact:
You don't need a 750+ car parking garage if you're not planning to park a lot of cars and generate a lot of traffic.
Email from the developer:
