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X19• Given the choice between building a traditional downtown and a giant mall, the city of Bloomington chose the mall. It is laid out in a rectangle with four anchor stores at the corners and Knoif's Camp Snoopy in the center. Flyover tamps from two adjacent highways lead to the mall's loop road; parking is provided in surface parking lots and-to the east and west of the mall-two enclosed parking structures, A brick-and- stucco facade makes the nation's largest enclosed mall appear a hit less daunting. ~ designers created a unique identity for each of the four shopping streets-one z international, one parklike, one cosmo-~ -_ - -politan, one contemporary. While those - - distinctions may be lost on most visitors, they will appreciate the fact that the corri- dors are pedestrian-friendly, with ample natural light, vistas, and plentiful land- scaping and seating. Urban designer Weiming Lu, AICP, di- rector of St. Paul's Lowertown Redevel- opment Corporation, considers the differ- entstreets "an admirable attempt to provide sensory orientation." Lu notes, though, that little of this mall's space is truly public, apart from the small plazas in front of each anchor store and the corri- dors themselves. Older, smaller regional malls tend to provide more unprogrammed public spaces. And they came In the late 1980s, when it first began trying to sell the project to a skeptical region, the Simon organization described the Twin Cities region as "understored," with 13 square feet of retail space per capita compared to the national average of 18.1. There was no doubt, said the developer, that the megamall would in- • crease the size of the retail pie for every- one. Undeniably, the mall had a success- . ful first year._Yet area planners continue . to question whether it should have been built at this location, just beyond,, the