Who keeps designing these crap parking lot entrances? First the district, then DJ. I’m pretty sure its not the same developer, but did they all go to the same engineering firm?

I anticipate this place being a zoo once all the stores are open (it’s already a zoo, albeit a smaller one, not the SD zoo just yet). A place full of asian ladies going to Hmart, drunkards coming back from Chae Bahn, it’s a big asian driving mess.

I’ll definitely be afraid of taking my car in there. Maybe a bicycle, or I’ll park at the storage facility and walk over. Driving a car in there will give me flashbacks of driving in Westminster or the 99 ranch parking lot. Scary. Better have good comp and collision insurance. Time to lower them deductibles!

For the District, however, once the Tustin Ranch Rd is completely built-out, the traffic should be 100X better.  Parking is a different issue, however.

Shooby - 30 September 2008 11:17 AM

it’s a big asian driving mess.

[ this is so not PC]

but isn’t this redundant? 

-bix

Went there yesterday, and like some of you said, it was a zoo!

Almost got run over by some dude… my fault, did not see that there is no stop sign for the cross traffic… who dumb bass designed this place?!?

Went to the bakery, and there was some people behind me saying that it is a Korean-style backery. <roll eyes>

biscuitninja - 30 September 2008 01:41 PM

Shooby - 30 September 2008 11:17 AM

it’s a big asian driving mess.

[ this is so not PC]

but isn’t this redundant? 

-bix

Lethal combination is when you mix badly design parking lot with Asian drivers.

Astute Observer - 30 September 2008 11:55 AM

For the District, however, once the Tustin Ranch Rd is completely built-out, the traffic should be 100X better.

I’m not too sure about that… they are still building standalones along District Drive (Ave?) which is not supposed to be the main entrance. Not too many people are going to want to go all the way down to Tustin Ranch Road so they can backtrack through the parking lot or 10mph roads to get to In&Out;, Best Buy or whatever those 2 new buildings are going to be. Parking is already a problem on that side before those new standalones… and great placement planning on that BofA ATM… not only is it not in the interior mall where most people would be walking but there is no dedicated ATM parking either.

irvine_home_owner - 02 October 2008 04:20 PM

Astute Observer - 30 September 2008 11:55 AM

For the District, however, once the Tustin Ranch Rd is completely built-out, the traffic should be 100X better.

I’m not too sure about that… they are still building standalones along District Drive (Ave?) which is not supposed to be the main entrance. Not too many people are going to want to go all the way down to Tustin Ranch Road so they can backtrack through the parking lot or 10mph roads to get to In&Out;, Best Buy or whatever those 2 new buildings are going to be. Parking is already a problem on that side before those new standalones… and great placement planning on that BofA ATM… not only is it not in the interior mall where most people would be walking but there is no dedicated ATM parking either.

Both Diamond and Legacy are both in excellent visual exposure location seen by 300,000 cars during morning and after work rush hours. The stretch of Jamboree between Fwy 5 and 405 is mostly zoned 50 mph. It is a major artery for city of Irvine. City of Irvine will not allow both centers to take access form Jamboree thus forcing entrances on to secondary roads.

Other than occasional traffic lights allowing traffic from the collector roads intersecting Jamboree driveways to commercial and residential development is forbidden due to traffic safety issues such as decelerating car driving on to driveway may cause rear end collisions. The driveways we see out there today were approved before 1985 when Jamboree was a dead end road ending at Barranca Tustin bound and Fwy 5 Newport bound.

Marketplace was built in 1985 when Jamboree was a dead end street. TIC got away with multiple driveways on to Jamboree. City of Irvine has favoritism and they are not Legacy and Diamond.

The Tustin and Irvine Market place have a total of 28 driveways exiting on to the perimeter major blvds so cars do not have to drive across the parking lots heading to the same exit.

I will explain in a layman term. When a theater is on fire and patrons are in a panic situation rushing to the same exit accidents will bound to happen like pushing, trampling and crushing people that fell. For safety reasons theater must have at least 3 exits to avoid danger and the same should apply to small shopping centers.

Size of Legacy is a performing arts stadium and not a theater and should have 28 exits but it has just 3 exits to the perimeter blvds. Everyone driving to the same exit meant a long line of cars blocking traffic.

Diamond Plaza is just as bad and will get worse when all the tenants move in.

All I can think of is that these parking lot designs are to prevent crime, but also prevent some shoppers from even going to their centers because of the inconvenience.  I mean if you were to rob one of these stores and leave by car, it would take you 15 min to escape.  There’s no easy way out.  And the stupidity of drivers these days certainly doesn’t help. Or rudeness. I spent this past week in Irvine and lost count the number of times I was backing out of a parking space with my car almost fully out of the parking space and people were still driving up and down the isle behind me just missing my back bumper.  I’ve never seen more rude drivers, and what’s with experience in New York and Boston.

I doubt that the design has any thing to do with crime prevention.  If you plan ahead (most robberies are), you will have a running getaway car with a driver in there.

Anyway, I have some experience with the security in the District.  Can’t say much more than I am not impressed by them.  Maybe they just don’t want to tell me all about their gadgets and what not, but I think I have seem all they have to show for.  Definitely a good target if you are interested.  PM me.

I noticed that DJ has a parking structure in the back of the stores so maybe the designers had some foresight.

I think the City of Irvine has a specific square footage to parking space requirement, and the parking structure is needed to satisfied the requirement.  I don’t think there is much foresight involved in this specific project.

Tried to go to Tokyo Table at lunch… too crowded… almost 40 minute wait time. But the menu looked interesting.

What’s strange is the only outlet is on Alton so it’s like all the cars are trapped inside the center.