Two dozen cities across the country pursued similar plans over the last 30 years, building skywalks and underground retail catacombs to keep businesses and stores from fleeing to suburbs and shopping malls. They ensconced shoppers and office workers in well-lighted, climate-controlled environments and insulated them from crime, cold and urban blight.
But now, many of these cities are gripped with builders' remorse. They say the skyways and tunnels have choked off pedestrian traffic, hurt street-level retailers and limited development in the city core.
And now, as cities try to draw residents downtown with loft conversions and tax incentives, several are trying to divert pedestrians back to the street and do away with the walkways. Critics say the walkways are too antiseptic and too controlled and have transformed cities into places to pass through, not live in.
This attitude shift shows that city planners and officials now see the pulse of their downtown not in its office towers and 9-to-5 workers, but in street cafes and restaurants, sidewalks and pedestrian traffic during the day, after work and on weekends.
Dallas has considered offering retailers $2.5 million in incentives if they relocate from the tunnels to the street. Des Moines has limited the expansion of its skywalks. Cincinnati has gone the furthest and approved a plan to tear down pieces of its 30-year-old skywalk system.
Still, skywalks and tunnels have become crucial arteries of city life in cold-weather places like Fargo, N.D., and Minneapolis, St. Paul and Rochester in Minnesota.
Other cities and downtown associations that have soured on their skywalks have no choice but to live with them. Many were built with a mix of public and private money and are now owned, maintained and guarded by the office towers through which they run.
Des Moines began building its three miles of skywalks in 1982, arguing at the time that the $10 million program would save the city. Twenty-three years later, city officials blame the skywalks for the ghostly still sidewalks and ground-floor vacancy rates of 60 percent.
The city has no plans to rip down its skywalks, but the City Council has passed resolutions limiting their presence to a central Skywalk District downtown. Two years ago, a $50 million entertainment development proposed by AMC Theaters fell apart because the city refused to allow a skywalk to be built over Court Avenue, city officials said.
Inside the Dallas Underground, a two-mile tunnel system that supports 90 businesses, the corridors are sometimes bustling, but sometimes deserted and melancholy. Despite the mayor's desire to plug the tunnels and lure businesses away, owners say they are happy to be down below, ready to serve the thousands of people who work above.
Others miss the urban rush. One afternoon, George Baum sat in a half-empty dining corridor in the basement of the Renaissance Towers, finishing lunch before he returned to the 19th floor and his job at Nieman Marcus.
