Napa Wayfinding

I’ve talked about Napa in several recent posts. I’ll move on shortly, but not before looking at wayfinding in downtown Napa.

I offered a quick introduction to wayfinding in a recent post. In summary, wayfinding isn’t solely about posting directional signs. It’s about having a coherent vision of what visitors should see in a community, particularly the experiences which would encourage them to spend money and to return. Then, it’s about ensuring that the visitors find those experiences. Signs should certainly be a part of wayfinding, but they can be complemented by architecture, placemaking, and other factors.

Measured against that standard, Napa lacks a coherent vision. Perhaps because of that absence, the directional signs, although well-intentioned, don’t tell an articulate story.

Starting with the signs which are directed at the cars traveling the downtown streets, note the inconsistency between the framing and the message. The logo at the top describes the downtown as historic. It’s a nice thought, but the directions then describe where to park, where to conduct municipal business, where to shop, and how to leave town. There isn’t a single direction to a place of historic interest. Obviously, as visitors drive around town, they’ll see signs that point to other destinations, such as Riverfront or the Oxbow Public Market, but I didn’t see a single sign that pointed to a historic site.

Once visitors park, they encounter a different type of signage, street maps mounted in cases. It’s an acceptable solution, but uninspired. It’s too much information to retain once one walks away. Plus, in an era when most people are carrying phones with map functions, a wall-mounted map is redundant.

And then once the visitors are strolling about town, they encounter a third type of signage for businesses only. They’re nicely made, but give directions to a seemingly random assortment of businesses that a visitor may or may not be interested in patronizing.

Nowhere in this system of wayfinding is historic mentioned again. Combined with largely dated and uninspiring architecture, it’s not surprising that pedestrians aren’t thronging downtown.

If I’m going to be critical of the current wayfinding system, I should have suggestions. And I do. Napa is a nice little town. It even has a historic past. But not much evidence of that history remains. Architecturally, much of the downtown is fundamentally uninteresting.

But what Napa does have is a place solidly within one of the premier gastronomical regions of the world. Napa wayfinding should drop any pretense of historic and focus on what the town truly has to impress visitors. Also, Napa has architecturally interesting neighborhoods both north and south of downtown. It’s been awhile since I’ve toured the neighborhoods around downtown, but I remember enjoying them.

If I were to schedule a perfect Napa outing, it would start with a light lunch featuring California cuisine, followed by a stroll through a nearby neighborhood with directions and viewing notes downloaded to my phone, followed by an extended wine sampling at a downtown establishment, and then concluded with a fine dining experience that last over two hours.

That is what Napa has to offer. The challenge is to define a wayfinding system that helps make it happen.

As always, your questions or comments will be appreciated. Please comment below or email me. And thanks for reading. - Dave Alden (davealden53@comcast.net)

Place Review: Downtown Napa

When my wife and I were first married, a little more than a decade ago, we lived in Napa. To this day, I have good feelings about Napa. But when I think back to the early days of our marriage, I remember taking evening drives up valley, to view the vineyards and to eat in St. Helena. Our trips to downtown Napa were more infrequent. We had good meals there, but we weren’t drawn to return regularly.

With those recollections in mind and with another decade of insights into how downtowns work, I crossed the bridge from the Oxbow District to take another look at downtown Napa. It remains a place of promise that’s only partially fulfilled.

Twin Falls, Idaho has a quirky downtown grid. The heart of downtown is twisted 45 degrees from the surrounding east-west, north-south grid. The town founders reportedly thought the rotation would allow sunlight to more uniformly reach their new streets. They were right. Streets that run east-west can be sunlight deprived, particularly in the winter months.

Twin Falls popped into my head as I walked west on First Street, which should be the heart of downtown. More sunlight would certainly help the street appearance. On a late March morning, the street felt perhaps not dark, but under-illuminated.

However, orientation isn’t the only concern with First Street. It’s also the architecture. Much of downtown Napa was built in an era of now dated architecture. Without pulling building permits, I’ll guess it was the 1960s and 1970s. Even worse, the buildings are largely dun colored. And although I’m a fan of street trees, the trees along First Street seem to further subdue the sense of a working downtown.

First Street also suffers from an absence of vista points. Vista points can be dramatic buildings, appealing parks, or other features that motivate pedestrians to keep moving. But the streets must bend occasionally, or meet in odd corners, to create places for vista points. First Street through the downtown core is dead straight. The lone building with interesting architecture can’t be seen from more than a block away.

Overall, First Street does little to draw pedestrians onward. And where pedestrians aren’t motivated, downtowns struggle to work.

Is First Street fixable? Well, the orientation and alignment are set. However, the architecture might offer opportunities. First Street needs a few taller buildings, preferably on the north side of the street, with visually-appealing architectural details and brighter colors. And perhaps also a couple of sidewalk cafés. Something that suggests potential delights to the pedestrian who will walk another block or two.

Although First Street looks dated, new development has been happening in Napa. In previous posts, I visited the Oxbow Public Market and the late Copia in the Oxbow District east of downtown. Even closer is the Riverfront complex a couple of blocks south of downtown.

Riverfront has a great location along the Napa River, fine architecture, and good detailing. It only lacks one element to be a successful place. People. On a beautiful mid-morning at the start of spring, a good place should have more faces than Riverfront.

A bit further downstream, at least one cause of the lack of people becomes evident. There are beautiful condominiums overlooking the river. But what happens to good condominiums in the Napa Valley? They’re bought by people who live elsewhere and visit only on weekends. For places to thrive there must be homes for people who live, work, and shop in the community. Riverfront lacks those homes.

Also, the walking route from downtown to Riverfront is unfortunate. The supposedly preferred route is along the river. It sounds pleasant, but the crossing under Third Street is dark and forbidding. Even with the sounds and smells of cars, I prefer walking on city streets to walking through dank underpasses.

Also, using city streets can offer insights to the community. One such insight on my return to downtown evoked a smile. An old building that looked to been a bar in earlier life was undergoing renovation. The intended new use wasn’t obvious, but reuse of existing buildings can bring more life to downtowns than new architecturally faddish construction.

I need to talk about the downtown Napa parking structures. They work fine and are in convenient locations, but the architecture is woeful. To my civil engineering eye, I’d call it brutalist architecture, modified with rough-cut timbers and coated chain link fencing. It was likely the style when the garages were built, but the garages look badly dated today. It’ll be a blessing to downtown when the garages reach the end of their productive life and can be replaced with structures that says “wine and gourmet food” instead of “architectural fad”. As I was taking my photo, a bystander asked me “You’re taking a picture of that?” I assured him that it was for illustrative purposes only.

Lastly, I should note that Napa is in the process of adopting a downtown specific plan. I applaud the action. As noted at a recent Urban Land Institute program on redevelopment, downtown specific plans may have increasing importance as a new approach to redevelopment evolves. However, I do have a concern with the draft specific plan. The sections that I’ve read may be too general. Specific, clear-cut standards that aren’t subject to re-interpretation by planning staffs and city councils are often needed to induce developers to undertake urban development.

Overall, downtown Napa should be capable of much greater success. I hope it can find that success.

As always, your questions or comments will be appreciated. Please comment below or email me. And thanks for reading. - Dave Alden (davealden53@comcast.net)