the BOHO Center Source

Developing Around Transit: Challenges for Cities and Suburbs

2008-01-22T10:07:00.000-08:00

Current interest in public transit investments is enormous. The challenge is to create the supporting development that will make the investments work.

The Federal Transit Administration recently approved funding for projects in Phoenix, Arizona, and Charlotte, North Carolina. The two join the ranks of light rail cities, which in recent years have added Houston, Texas; Las Vegas, Nevada; and Minneapolis, Minnesota—regions in which transit had captured only 3 to 5 percent of commuters in 2000.

In spreading from traditional markets such as New York, Chicago, and San Francisco to nontraditional markets in the South, Midwest, and West, transit faces a twofold challenge. The first challenge is for advocates to convince the larger community that transit will work—that it will serve middle-class people who are accustomed to driving. The second and more difficult challenge is making the case that compact, urban development around transit will work to generate the ridership necessary to support the new project.

This kind of smart growth linked to transit is also necessary in established markets that have grown up around transit. Ironically, residents in some traditional transit cities such as Boston and Cleveland do not believe that they have any transit-oriented development, which is perceived as more of a West Coast, new urbanist phenomenon—that is, allied with smart growth and walkable communities that are large suburban planned developments.

Aspects of a Conundrum

The conundrum is that much of the interest in new transit investments is occurring in places where transit is a novelty, yet many established transit markets are struggling to maintain services. A national survey, conducted under the Transportation Research Board’s Transit Cooperative Research Program, identified approximately 100 transit-oriented developments in the United States.1 This is a paltry number, which suggests either that not much is occurring or that the size of this market is severely underrepresented in the survey results, considering the vast amount of attention devoted to the topic of transit-oriented development in the planning and transit literature.

A new book by the Urban Land Institute, Developing Around Transit: Strategies and Solutions That Work, avoids the term transit-oriented development but highlights examples that meet the goals, whether or not the developers or the cities acknowledge it.

Another aspect of the conundrum is that from a transit perspective, urban projects yield the greatest leverage in expanding transit ridership and supporting transit services. New housing and offices in neighborhoods with good transit service create additional transit riders, often without the need for adding transit service. Neighborhoods accessible to transit also give options to new residents who would like to avoid driving.

Reshaping Development

Building in established urban areas is friendly to transit, but unfriendly to development. Projects take longer and are more expensive to build. The market is often unproven—the risks are high, and profits are uncertain. In contrast, conventional suburban projects are development-friendly, but transit-unfriendly. Most growth is expected in the suburbs; therefore the challenge is to reshape conventional development to create the kind of vibrant places that offer transit choices.

The market opportunities for urban infill development are excellent in many older areas, with young professionals and empty nesters seeking a more urban lifestyle, and with employers seeking neighborhoods that offer more employee amenities. In the report, Emerging Trends in Real Estate: 2005, the Urban Land Institute and PricewaterhouseCoopers ranked the areas near transit highest for development and investment, reflecting the appeal of infill development, as well as the public’s frustration with traffic congestion.

Development, however, does not occur just because of transit. Block 37 in downtown Chicago, for example, has been vacant since 1990, when the city cleared the land for mixed-use development. The location is excellent, but the vagaries of the marketplace have foiled the city’s plans to create a mixed-use development in one phase—the office market lacked sufficient depth when retail business was strong, and vice versa. When the city relaxed the requirement for single-phase development, a new developer with a retail orientation gave the project new momentum. The experience demonstrates that in urban infill development, a strong location cannot make up for soft market conditions or unrealistic expectations.

The first mixed-use transit project in Texas, Mockingbird Station is located adjacent to a Dallas Area Rapid Transit light rail station. The developer understood the appeal of in-town living near transit, although the city would not assist with pedestrian improvements and would not relax parking standards because of the light rail. In contrast, Dallas suburbs such as Richardson and Plano have created more urban development around their transit stations.

Markets and Policies

Reinforcing a strong market with consistent public policies can turn individual projects into successful transit districts. One of the best examples in the United States is the Rosslyn–Ballston corridor in Arlington, Virginia. The vision that developed three decades ago with the support of public officials and civic leaders has turned a once-declining strip into a vibrant mix of office, high-density residential, retail, dining, and entertainment. The development is a massive fiscal success, giving Arlington County the region’s lowest tax rate.

Successful development around transit is a challenge for cities and suburbs. The transit project must be attuned to the needs of the real estate development market, and developers in turn must appreciate the special opportunities of transit.

The Next Best Thing: Micro-retail

2008-01-10T14:44:00.000-08:00

by Callison

The way we shop now

Shopping patterns and preferences have segregated into dozens of what demographers call "clusters," described in Michael Weiss's book The Clustered World, as "consumption communities defined by demographics, intellect, taste and outlook."

Each of these clusters (Weiss names 62) has their own initiations, ceremonies and cultural effects - think of the annual rally of Harley Davidson owners in Sturgis, South Dakota, the appetite for adventure-sports that young technology professionals share, or the environmental sensitivity of gen-y'ers - which influence the types of products and experiences each group seeks.

While this market segmentation is not new, it has been manifested mainly through product differentiation and advertising. Now, however, it is starting to direct the style and substance of our shopping destinations.

The so-called lifestyle center is clearly one type of segmentation - though given its upscale offerings, a more apt name might be the "Elite Suburban" center. Another is the rising number of co-tenancy clauses in lease agreements, where one tenant requires the presence of specific, complementary tenants.

Micro-retailing

These moves signal the start of a larger trend toward what Callison calls "micro-retail." Unlike the "all things for all people" regional shopping mall, micro-centers are targeted, thoughtfully packaged destinations that appeal to a given slice of the increasingly stratified American lifestyle pie.

Like a micro-beer, which is developed as a niche product aimed at specific tastes, these new developments feature carefully chosen ingredients, attention to detail and craftsmanship, custom packaging, and a characteristic, often sociable experience that surrounds its consumption.

Savvy developers will apply similar principles to create 21st century retail destinations, using targeted leasing, packaging and experiences to connect with a particular cluster or clusters.

The Payoff
Like all business today, retail development is far more complex than it used to be. Is it worth it? With its potential for both social and economic rewards, we think so. But don't take our word for it. Next time you decide to kick back and pop a cold one, just ask yourself: Local specialty brew, or Bud? Cheers.

Leasing
If the mantra used to be location, location, location, today it's tenants, tenants, tenants - with the right mix.

1. Replace the rolodex with research
The days of "rolodex" leasing for large retail centers are numbered. More important than who you know is what you know - about the offerings that will best satisfy your shoppers.

2. Bundle tenants
Tenant bundling can be either horizon-tal or vertical. Horizontal bundling serves a range of needs (apparel, hard goods, specialty, food and beverage) for a defined customer profile. Vertical bundling builds a tenant package around a specific concept, like recrea-tion, wellness, or culinary interests. Resist the temptation of cross-market deals, which dilute performance.

3. Think beyond 3-5-9
People will drive 25 miles, even more, to a place created just for them. Get the tenants you need by selling the idea, not the location.

4. Look local
Including local tenants may require extra legwork, but the effort pays off in a stronger identity and customer loyalty. Shoot for 20% local or regional offerings; consider community organizations or business services as well as stores and restaurants.

5. 30% to 40% food and beverage
Cafes, bars and restaurants are increasingly popular among consumers for three big reasons: less time, more money, enough stuff. Last year, Americans spent 46% of their food budget outside the home, a number that is expected to increase to 53% by 2010. (National Restaurant Association.)

Packaging
Customized packaging will leverage the value of a well-bundled tenant mix. Establish an appropriate "look and feel," while addressing fundamentals such as convenient access and smart layout.

6. Borrow from other models
Look to hospitality, wellness, cultural, entertainment or other models as a way to focus and differentiate your position. Remember, it's not just about shopping. Good experiences and relevant services rank right up there with more stuff.

7. Ditch the theme
Consumers up to their eyeballs in "reality" TV and synthetic environments ala Las Vegas and Disneyland increasingly value what is tangible, sensual and emotional. The superficial nature of themed environments now strike us as unnecessary, if not silly. Instead, create places and offerings that activate the senses - live music, fresh air, wood you can knock on, looking across the table and having a real conversation.

8. Identify yourself
Loyalty increases when people identify with a place. Foster a sense of ownership and pride by shaping a relevant design character. Be sensitive to time, people and place.
Experience
People crave rich experiences. It's a well-documented desire that testifies to a broader search for meaning that transcends material goods.

9. Make room for meaning
What types of everyday experiences will be meaningful to your customer? A moment of peace? An energizing crowd? Family fun? Should they be intimate or grand? Offbeat or mainstream? Urbane or down-home?

Set the stage for relevant "third place" experiences to unfold, and hit home with customers no matter where they live.

Harry Allen retail design for UNION

2008-01-08T12:53:00.000-08:00

From David Report

The second store by New York designer Harry Allen for prestigious streetwear retailer, UNION, is one part archeological dig and two parts humble masterpiece. Located two doors down from the site of the original UNION store on Spring Street in Manhattan, the new space incorporates some of the elements we developed for its counterpart in LA yet remains true to New York. Harry Allen started by stripping away layers of interior finishes to reveal some original details. He found a window and door that had been covered over, a variety of plaster and brick finished, and the rafters were beautiful. “The demo process in New York is so interesting that we decided to preserve it,” says Harry Allen. The reclaimed details were “ghosted” out by decorative painter Frank Rynan and used as the backdrop for merchandise. The wooden area up front echoes the original store design - it is friendly and familiar. And the back lit, black metal shoe wall at the back of the store becomes a dramatic draw for the eye. The new UNION store is literally a “union” of brand, store environment, and location.

UNION is one of the most respected brands in the streetwear business. Harry Allen is really fond of the whole phenomenon and he has previously designed five stores for the UNION sister brand, Supreme.

Award Winning Park: "Wade Oval"

2008-01-04T07:39:00.000-08:00

Cleveland’s Wade Oval is just seven acres, but it is uniquely-situated amid many of the most important cultural institutions in the city, including the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, Cleveland Botanical Garden, and Cleveland Art Museum. Located in the University Circle neighborhood that is home to Case Western Reserve University, the Oval is at the center of a neighborhood that draws tens of thousands of students, patients and visitors daily.
At the request of University Circle, Inc., a local nonprofit planning and development organization, PPS worked with citizens in University Circle, institutional stakeholders and internationally renowned architects and designers hired to expand several of these institutions, to help the Oval’s adjacent uses benefit from their unique location on the Oval, and transform the Oval itself – and the boulevard around it – to become more welcoming to both visitors and the local community, and enlivened by events and activities programmed by the rich array of partners around it.

PPS recommended a plan to connect the institutions to one another and to the park, partly through small changes to building facades and outdoor areas that reveal more information about what's going on inside these buildings. Using PPS’s conceptual plan, University Circle, Inc initiated a $1.4 million renovation of the Oval, which was completed in October of 2003, revealing such improvements as new walkways, pathway lighting, benches, lampposts, drinking fountains, and a performance stage that blends in with the surrounding landscape. The Cleveland Plain Dealer’s architecture critic, Steve Litt, wrote of the revitalized Oval “The transformation though modest in cost is astonishing. UCI has turned the park into a postcard-perfect amenity worthy of any city in the world.”

"Relational Neighborhoods"

2008-01-03T08:15:00.000-08:00

Excerpt from Frank A. Mills, Urban Psychologist

A "relational neighborhood" is a "group of people with which an individual interacts frequently, to whom an individual feels connected, or to whom the individual would go to for help." Relational "neighbors" may include family members, schoolmates, friends, co-workers, and church members, as well as neighbors.

Although "relational neighborhood," by definition, can define "neighborhoods" other than geographical neighborhoods it would serve us well to understand the characteristics of a relational neighborhood as they apply to the geographical neighborhood.

Andrew Crook in his essay on the Relational City ("The Relational City: A New Framework for Tackling Unemployment," Relationship Institute, Cambridge, England, 1997) suggests that there are three characteristics, and five "micro-building blocks" for the Relational City. Applying these to the context of a geographical neighborhood, we find that a relational neighborhood is a neighborhood where residents share a commitment to the neighborhood, to each other, and to joint participation in improving their neighborhood.

To delineate, Crook's three characteristics are ...

A commitment to place: A relational neighborhood is one to which residents are committed to, and feel pride in belonging to.

A commitment to people: A relational neighborhood in one characterized by mutual respect and concern among residents.

A commitment to participation: A relational neighborhood is one which residents know their joint power for change and use it.

For Crook, the five elements, or "micro-level building blocks," necessary to create a Relational City, or for our purposes, a relational neighborhood out of which beneficial characteristics like mutual trust and co-operation can develop are:

Face-to-face contact (Directness)
Residents physically meet with each other and mutually interact. In the process, they begin to understand and appreciate other perspectives expressed by neighbors. Simply put, relationships cannot exist if people do not come together.

Common purpose (Commonality)
Residents share a joint vision, or at least some elements. If residents do not share a common purpose there will be no opportunity to profitably work together. Common purpose requires residents to be convinced that there are common projects on which they can co-operate to their mutual advantage.

Contact over time (Continuity)
Relationships take time to develop. People are highly unlikely to form strong commitment to a neighborhood if they see their stay likely to be short.

Contact in different contexts (Multiplexity)
Multiplexity is the idea that a relationship between two (or more) people is strengthened if it takes place in more than one context. In my neighborhood, for example, most of my neighbors attend the same church and we all walk to the same stores.

Mutual respect (Parity)
Neighborhood residents are able to interact on roughly the same level with equal power. Neighbors meet on equal footing and contribute equally. When a particular neighbor chooses at times to remain aloof from the neighborhood a relational neighborhood will accept the neighbor back into the process as if he had never left.

Keys to a smart transit-oriented project

2008-01-02T15:00:00.000-08:00

Urban cluster projects have a delicate chemistry. With so many variables, players, financial formulas, and expectations involved, it's easy to end up on the wrong side of the track before the first shovel of dirt is even turned.

“From a city's point of view, these transit nodes will become a gateway to the city, and everybody has high expectations of what that gateway should look like,” says designer Chek Tang, principal of Oakland, Calif.-based McLarand Vasquez Emsiek & Partners, which specializes in transportation-oriented developments (TODs). Hence, laying the early groundwork for the TOD is every bit as important as its execution, says Tang.

“City governments have an entrenched lack of familiarity in TOD projects,” adds Austin City Councilman Brewster McCracken, the city's point person for two planned transit villages along its future light-rail line. “So, it's absolutely critical to be transparent from the very beginning and to have shared information and shared goals.”

That's a message that Marilee Utter, a Denver-based national transit consultant for Citiventure Associates, routinely carries to cities, architects and developers. Over the years, Utter has compiled a list of five crucial steps cities should take with developers in the early-planning process of a transit-oriented project:

Map out the objective: Cities should aggressively determine the project's initial vision, instead of the developer, urges Utter. “Who better to know the city's culture than the people who hold office there?” Conversely, communities should cede decisions on design elements such as pedestrian-flow patterns to the architects and developers.

Optimize land usage: Cities should commit to studying and understanding a TOD's requirement for higher-density development and less-than-standard parking ratios. Cities should assist developers with land assembly from the beginning of the project, Utter stresses.

Listen to your neighbors: Nearby residents are the most likely to resist plans for a transit village. Their concerns should be prioritized in TOD master plans, tenant mix and traffic flow.

Use quality materials: Construction materials should be top-of-the-line and help make a statement about the project's staying power, Utter says. Additionally, cities should insist on exemplary street designs, but not demand that every enclave or street have retail.

Understand your customer: Project architects and developers should strongly link the development's access points to its design and theme to further create continuity. “Always think about the consumer,” emphasizes Utter.

Excape The Bland...Designing Micro Centers

2007-12-28T13:34:00.000-08:00

excerpt from Retail Trends

Main Street USA

For horizontal mixed-use projects, architects say the most frequent failing is creating a development that feels bland to the customer. Mixed-use projects are expected to recreate the town square setting found in downtowns of the past, but many architects don't look closely enough at what made those settings work, according to John R. Clifford, principal of GreenbergFarrow, a national firm offering architecture, engineering and development services.

“They are trying to recreate the Main Street of Disneyland, this artificial idea of what a Main Street looks like,” says Jack Illes, managing partner of Urban Labs, a Del Mar, Calif.-based urban design and architecture firm specializing in mixed-use retail and residential projects. “You can show up anywhere in the country and you'll find the same kind of place, with the same tenants and after a while, it's going to feel as tired as the mall because it's not unique.”

This is a costly mistake, because horizontal mixed-use projects, where buildings are spread out over many small buildings, bring some added expenses to the mix. Four-sided construction tends to cost 10 percent to 15 percent more than the three-sided approach commonly used with single-use retail properties, says Jack O'Brien, president of Dallas, Texas-based architecture firm O'Brien & Associates.

To break monotony, allowing retailers to pursue their own design visions can help make the place unique, according to Illes. He brings up the example of General Growth Properties' Otay Ranch Town Center, a recently opened lifestyle property in Chula Vista, Calif.
General Growth let each retailer design its own storefront, resulting in details as varied as limestone pillars and striped awnings to stonework and a sunset yellow color scheme for the local Barnes & Noble.

The quality of the materials, however, has to be consistent throughout the development, says Stan Laegreid, principal of Seattle, Wash-based Callison Architecture. A community for the mid-market consumer should not have elements of luxury to avoid confusing customers.

A common mistake architects have made with some of the first horizontal mixed-use projects has been to bury the retail deep inside the project's residential components. The retail and residential should play off each other, but retail also needs to pull from a wider trade area, says Greg Lyon, partner with KTGY Group, Inc., an Irvine, Calif.-based planning and architecture firm. “They need traffic that extends beyond that community,” he says.

When adding entertainment to the mix, designers also need to think about the hours of operation for theaters and restaurants. “A live theater isn't necessarily used 365 days a year and even if it is, it's typically only from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m.,” says Illes. “What happens the rest of the day? You've got a bunch of doors leading to an empty, dark place and that can kill traffic.” And location is important as well. Otherwise, residents may have to deal with noise every night.

To make the projects interesting to explore, architects and planners should vary the width and length of streets within the development, the style and height of various buildings, the size of public area spaces and the distribution of architectural features such as fountains and clock towers.

“Real cities were built over time by different architects and different landlords,” says Clifford. “They have modern structures on the side of Neoclassical ones, with Victorian architecture nearby.”

Spacing is also an important consideration, says Alex Espinoza, design principal in the retail/commercial studio of Dorsky Hodgson Parrish Yue, a Cleveland, Ohio-based architecture firm. When buildings are too close together, people feel uneasy, but putting them too far apart disorients visitors, Espinoza says.

The configuration and placement of parking lots is one of the greatest challenges in mixed-use development. Most experts say that parking in horizontal projects should be segregated by use, with separate lots set aside for residents, retail customers and office workers. These lots have to be connected to their respective uses by convenient pedestrian links and should be within close walking distance for the center's customers, says Michael Alston, of Development Design Group, a Baltimore, Md.-based planning, architecture and design firm. In vertical projects, which tend to use structured parking, segregation is even more critical — the condominium owners don't want to come home a week before Christmas and find that their spaces have been taken by shoppers, says Lyon. He recommends creating separate entrances for residents and office workers from the retail portion of the project.

Vertically challenged

In vertical mixed-use projects national retail tenants with good credit are vital for securing financing, but they have set store prototypes and prefer wide, open spaces with great ceiling height. That is difficult to achieve when there are all kinds of mechanical and plumbing systems coming down from the apartments above, says Simon Sykes, vice president with Development Design Group. One solution is to position these systems horizontally, along the ceiling, instead of vertically, when they come to the first floor. O'Brien recommends creating a 2- to 4-foot tall interstitial space between the retail level and the apartments above for sewer pipes as a way to avoid multiple penetrations of the podium slab above retail.

In vertical mixed-use, structured parking can account for up to 15 percent of the entire project cost, while not producing any revenue, says Laegreid.

Another issue to tackle is how the retailers can load and unload merchandise without disturbing residents. A loading dock can be installed in the back of the building or on the ground floor or basement level, with an elevator delivering the goods to the retailer's main floor. This requires a delicate balancing act — elevators and servicing areas often translate into inefficient space and lost revenue, resulting in up to 15 percent of additional expense, says Laegreid.

Getting the message out

The architect also has to make sure that the retail component is the most eye-catching of all in a mixed-use property, says Jeff Green, owner of Jeff Green Partners, a Mill Valley, Calif.-based retail consulting firm. In such a dense environment, visitors' eyes tend to wander and if the storefronts don't jump out at them, the retailers are likely to suffer. O'Brien recommends using different construction materials to set retail apartfrom residential and office.

Considering what kind of tenants go well with a mixed-use building is also an important decision. Restaurants, for example, are a risk for vertical mixed-use projects because in addition to the smell and noise that might bother residents, they can draw rats and mice that could eventually scurry up and infest residential units.

“That's new information to many people in the suburban hinterland; it isn't necessarily self-evident,” says Illes. To prevent a disaster, developers need to make sure that the market in which their mixed-use property is going to be located can support each use on its own. They have to educate themselves on what makes mixed-use work and adequately explain their vision to the architect, says Illes.

“If you hire different architecture firms for each use, you've got one team trying to solve all of their problems and another team concentrating on what they need,” says Brian Church, of Urban Labs.

“We've tried that in some cases, but it's really difficult,” Church says.

Return of the Occidental Tourist

2007-12-27T10:23:00.000-08:00

excerpts from Seattlest

Yesterday Seattlest broke out of the office at noon, grabbed a Tats'trami and headed to Occidental Square. There's nothing like passing a short hour with a book and a gut bomb in a square... Actually, had a book along, but it was only cover for our real mission which was to watch all the little people go about their little lives and they happily obliged by showing up and staring back at us. What? Just eating a sandwich and reading over here. Nosy freak.

Earlier this week Seattlest got an email from the Project for Public Spaces who'd recently found a post of ours from last fall about the newly renovated Occidental Square, a renovation they had a hand in. They wondered if we had any updates to our first reactions. A bunch of trees were removed during the park's renovation--seventeen of them, exactly--which, in light of the P-I's article on Monday about the declining fortunes of the tree in Seattle, is pretty tragic.

Generally we're not in favor of the removal of urban trees, but it did help the square. Yesterday the sun came out just as we were arriving and it was leafy and bright at the same time. We had our book and the Tats'trami and when the couple at the table next to us started speaking Polish we thought for just a second that we might be back in the greatest square on the face of the Earth. But no.

It's not really the square's fault, though. You can mess with the leafy to sunny ratio for ever, but you're not going to change the fact that the businesses that surround the square are designed to be used once a month. If there were a few boutiques that opened directly into Occidental Square and maybe another cafe or four there would be a reason for people to meander around on a lunch hour. As things stand, it still seems like a really nice square that most people haul ass through en route to catching the first pitch. We're going head back for some more lunches, though, and maybe we'll grab a few coworkers on the way next time. It should be the best spot in or near Downtown for people watching and we're going to start doing our part by showing up.

Can new architecture create successful places?

2007-12-22T06:50:00.000-08:00

by Kathy Madden

People often ask me if a building has to be old or look historic to create a sense of place. I always answer with a definite "No!" While it may be easier to find older buildings where public activity flourishes, their success is not due to age or a particular architectural style. The main factor is actually how the base of the building is treated. A building with a well-designed (and well-managed!) ground floor can be a great place regardless of the style in which it is constructed. Let's look at two places which I think illustrate this point quite effectively: Country Club Plaza in Kansas City, and Rockefeller Center in New York.

Country Club Plaza, which debuted in the 1920s, is one of the nation's oldest shopping centers. Built in a style that mimics the architecture of Seville, Spain, it succeeds as a pedestrian district even though it was developed to accommodate cars. A few years ago PPS interviewed the managers of the complex, and we found that they attributed their success to four things. One, they offered a mix of attractions that appeal to a broad array of people – for example, by varying the price ranges of retail and restaurants. Second, they located necessities (e.g. bank branches, or doctors' and dentists' offices) in places that would lead people to pass by retail stores en route. Third, everything in the development allowed people to interact with it in some way. Children could touch sculptures; people could sit by pools and fountains; window displays were designed to maximize intrigue; outdoor cafes hosted jazz performers and other entertainment. And last, but certainly not least, blank walls were not allowed anywhere. Where management identified sterile areas around the exterior of the complex, they added plantings or artwork to liven the space up for passersby. What's remarkable is that, even though the Plaza is widely known for its historicist aesthetic, the people who run it cite very different reasons for its enduring popularity.

Rockefeller Center, though it was constructed just a short time after Country Club Plaza, couldn't look more different--but it is an even better public space. Its soaring forms are modernist icons, and the closer you get, the more these buildings come alive. Art deco sculptures grace the entrances. Ground floor windows protrude slightly from facades, enticing people to slow down and take a look at the goods inside. Changing exhibits and events in the center of the complex keep it humming in every season, while artfully placed wooden benches enable people to pause, rest, reflect, and take it all in. Here, a modern aesthetic gracefully accommodates a great public space.

Contrast the original Rockefeller Center with the more recently developed Rockefeller Center West (built in the 1970s on the west side of Sixth Avenue), however, and you'll see a very different way of building which has no sense of place. The buildings here do not have human-scaled bases: Store windows and entrances are set back from the sidewalk by nearly 50 feet, and the space between the building and the curb is basically empty. The retail is hidden so few people go window shopping. There is no reason for people to linger or make a return visit.

Rockefeller Center and Country Club Plaza make it clear that success as a public space is independent from architectural style. But as Rockefeller Center West illustrates, newer buildings often fall short of the mark. This is also true regardless of style. In fact, many of the worst new buildings are those designed to look old or historic, which don't work because they hide their ground floor uses behind a "charming" facade.

So although great new buildings may be few and far between, I stand behind my emphatic "No" -- there is NO reason new architecture can't contribute to an enhanced sense of place in the public realm. I would love to hear from readers of this blog about new buildings that succeed at their base--that engage the sidewalk with transparent ground floors and a mix of retail and other uses. What new architecture is striving to create better places?

Sustainable Bags: "Freitag"

2007-12-14T10:00:00.000-08:00

what: the Freitag bag, a Swiss-made carryall manufactured entirely from recycled materials. Invented by Swiss brothers Daniel and Markus Freitag, who wanted bags just like the ones used by New York bike couriers (bags that were practical, weatherproof, quick and easy to use), the Freitag bag is an urban tool, a saddlebag for the city, durable enough to be carried all over the world. Very attractive to a visually-trained eye, it’s a pleasant surprise in a world of standardised, mass-produced everyday objects.

who: Markus and Daniel Freitag — also known as the Freitag brothers — were heavily influenced by the motorway. Living in an apartment near a highway in Switzerland, they had easy access to watching the trucks rolling by, covered in thick tarpaulin. In 1993, the DoItYourself duo began to create one-of-a-kind bags made of recycled waterproof tarps, bicycle inner tubes and seatbelts. Before long they were trucking; the company outgrew the brothers’ apartment and moved to its own space in Zurich. Freitag opened flagship stores in Davos, Switzerland, and in Hamburg, Germany. Perhaps more importantly, it established an international presence online. The website allows online hipsters around the world to shop, create custom bags, learn more about the company, play branded games, and even apply for jobs.

sustainability features: the Freitag bag is tailor-made on a small-scale, of recycled materials. Made entirely by hand, the unpretentious Freitag bag has distanced itself from trendy, brand-driven products as a durable and radical ‘anti-brand’ alternative for youthful urbanites who have made it their choice for toting personal necessities. In addition to covering the history of the bag and its particular ecological, economic, and socio-cultural contexts, Freitag.com contains portraits of 3,000 Freitag bags and their owners, most of whom are members of a generation that is as vain as it is critical of consumerism -a generation for whom the Freitag bag is the ideal brand-name product.

Great Urban Streets Design Principles

2007-11-30T12:59:00.000-08:00

Principle 1:
Manage CongestionCongestion is a fact of life in successful urban places. By definition, a place that supports a great concentration of economic and social activities within a pedestrian-scaled environment is going to be congested.

Principle 2:
Balanced/Active StreetsDowntown streets must balance the needs of pedestrians, bicycles, transit and the automobile in creating an attractive and viable urban core. Downtown streets are for people first, commercial second, parking third and through traffic fourth.

Principle 3:
Streets as PlacesThe Great Streets Program envisions downtown as a vital focus of city life, and as a primary destination. Our downtown streets are our most important and pervasive public space and common ground.

Principle 4:
Interactive Streets Urban Streets are the stages on which the public life of the community is acted out.

Principle 5:
Pride of PlaceVisible, caring and upkeep are critical to the vitality of urban street life.

Principle 6:
Public ArtArt in the public environment can help to establish a stronger sense of place and a continuity between the past, present and future.

Pitiousa- Human Scale Development

2007-11-29T08:06:00.000-08:00

The design for the town of Pitiousa recognises that every context is a self-regulating, living system; that the basic elements of urbanism are the urban block, the street and the square; that buildings should never be as large as the commission; and that they should use well-tried constructional techniques and materials. Pitiousa also recognises that " Classicism is not a Style ", but a tradition that has evolved from and coexisted with the vernacular. It is a living tradition open to adaptation and interpretation, and responsive to region, climate and nature. "

-Demetri Porphyrios

" Unlike the currently marketed conception of tradition as the "peddling of antiques", the classical project does not aim at upholstering a spurious restoration. Instead, its aim has been to ferret out in existing society those traditional elements that could foster the new. The story of cities has been the story of endless innovation. But the new has never been a mere novelty. The new has always been the result of a process of knowledge and merit. the various phases of history are additive and the storing of new experience has been the law of mankind. The exclusive characteristic of civilised man has been his ability to record and to retrieve from memory. In that sense, Classicism and the Traditional City are less absorbed in the dialectic between an imagined future and a nostalgic past ( as many critics have claimed ), than in the search for realistic projects. The ultimate criterion in the design of cities ought to be the public well-being of their inhabitants. "

-Demetri Porphyrios

Sustainable co-op supermarket?

2007-11-27T12:05:00.000-08:00

from cool town studios

Good neighborhood supermarkets are hard to come by. Trader Joe's and Whole Foods are the de facto choices by the downtown crowd, though the former has a limited selection and the latter caters to an upper class income. The most progressive neighborhoods in forward-thinking cities like Madison WI, Burlington VT, Cambridge MA and Ann Arbor MI have it figured out - co-op supermarkets.

As you can see (above), co-ops have evolved - they're organized via grassroots efforts, but don't look like grassroots efforts. In fact, they're sharp-looking, well-managed, and price competitive because they follow the mass customization/crowdsourcing/beta community model of future patrons organizing to design and develop the grocery they want. In fact, as a result, most of them have built-in cafes (right) and community bulletin boards.

The question then becomes, how does one start a co-op supermarket? The answer is with the Food Co-op 500 (perhaps a play on the Fortune 500), cooperative effort to help establish a total of 500 co-op supermarkets in 10 years (there are 300 today).

The outline of the development guide can be found here, based on:

1. Four organizing principles:The 'Four Cornerstones' of Vision, Talent, Capital and Systems.
2. Three stages of development:Organizing, Feasibility and Planning, and Implementation.
3. Two sources of funding:- $10,000 matching Seed Fund grant for the first stage of development.- $25,000 matching Sprout Fund loan for the second and third stages of development.

Finally, you can 'find a co-op supermarket near you' with the Cooperative Grocer Directory... and if there isn't one, you now have an idea of how to solve that!

In Praise of Smaller Developments

2007-11-25T15:03:00.000-08:00

by Trisha Riggs E-mail: priggs@uli.org

ULI’s Place Making Conference Explores Fundamentals of Designing and Building for Change

Conference panelists discussed the benefits of building smaller developments. The smaller the town center development, the more necessary it is to link with the surrounding neighborhoods, resulting in ample points of connection. Conversely, while larger developments have more capability to be self-sustaining, this can lead to isolation, participants noted. “Going small forces you to connect to what is around you, because you are not big enough to do things on your own,” said Richard E. Heapes, principal of Street-Works in White Plains, N.Y.

According to John E. Felton, principal and director of community design at Cline Design Associates in Raleigh, N.C., there are several steps that can be taken upfront to help smoothen the process of developing small, mixed-use projects, including conducting a full analysis of the entire site’s potential and the timing of the development of each use; developing a clear strategy for integrating each use; using a simple, efficient design; understanding that parking for each use is critical; and planning for the creation of an engaging place that draws people back for repeat visits.

Felton advised conference attendees to “go to where the people are” to find promising sites for smaller projects—including downtown infill locations, sites near transit, places close to universities or cultural centers, and old shopping centers. Many of these sites represent lucrative opportunities for adaptive reuse, he said.

Katherine Kelley, president of Green Street Properties in Atlanta, shared four key lessons learned in developing small-scale projects: 1) Be externally focused—build to the perimeter of the project so it connects to the external infrastructure. “This is beneficial to the surrounding community as well—each can enjoy the benefits of the other.” 2) Anchor the project with great restaurants. “They (restaurants) are a primary channel for the public, and they draw people to the adjacent retail.” 3) To the extent possible, arrange the project’s components horizontally. “If you have to layer vertically, make each building easily walkable to the next.” 4) Realize that something has to give to make the numbers work. “If you don’t have high density (which is sometimes a challenge to achieve in smaller projects) you have to look elsewhere for a sufficient revenue stream.”

The place making trend, said Terry Shook, president of Shook Kelley in Charlotte, N.C., has resulted in a “new breed” of community developers who are catering to rising consumer demand for convenient living environments that save time by offering a variety of development uses close together. Town center development provides an opportunity to reclaim areas with no sense of community—particularly in suburban settings—by “turning the ordinary into the special, until we reach a point at which the special becomes the ordinary,” he said.

Shop in a Box

2007-11-22T14:17:00.000-08:00

The latest in the world of pop-up retail? From Singapore comes the Venue VBOX, a portable store in a shipping container, which can be set-up temporarily. Any place. Any time.

The VBOX enables a brand or company to follow an event they wish to align their brand with, or pop up where consumers least expect it. Tag along with a photography exhibition or set up shop temporarily at a large sporting event. Brands can even showcase items that consumers may not otherwise be able to purchase elsewhere: just fill the VBOX with one-offs or special editions and you'll pull in consumers with the prospect that they'll able to purchase something unique.

The VBOX comes self-contained and equipped with an iMac and iPod HiFi. It's entirely ready to go; all that needs to be done is fill it with enticing products. To date the VBOX has housed collections by some of the fashion world’s most prestigious names: RAF SIMONS (Prada Group) and limited PUMA designer co-labs by Alexander McQueen, Christy Turlington, Mihara Yasuhiro as well as CDs, magazines/books and Motorola phones.

Whether the VBOX is placed in a remote village in Spain, on a beach in California or on the ski slopes of Canada, it's a refreshing way to inject fun and excitement into a brand and win over a swag full of new consumers. Japanese clothing brand UNIQLO used container stores for its recent launch in the United States. More about that here. And for much more on pop-up retail, check out trendwatching.com's overview.

People=Power!

2007-11-19T13:42:00.000-08:00

By SAM COOPER

Fred Kent believes in people power.
You can have the most attractively built community in the world, he says, but if people don’t come together to mix in public spaces, it’s just dead space.

Kent recently spoke to the West Vancouver Chamber of Commerce and Mayor Pamela Goldsmith-Jones, in relation to the plans to renew Ambleside.
The world-renowned urban planning expert has worked with over 2,000 communities through his New York-based Project for Public Spaces consultancy, started in 1975.

His theory is that attractive, non-automobile dominated public spaces layered with multi-use functions will pump vitality back into communities that have become too isolated.

Educated at Columbia University, Kent brings studies of geography, economics, transportation, planning and anthropology, into his “place-making” philosophy. He’s taken about a million photos in communities around the world, using time lapse technology to understand the underlying motivation of people’s attraction, or repulsion, to certain public spaces.

“Foot movements are like a sort of language,” he explained of his photographic methodology, to a table of listeners including Goldsmith-Jones and Park Royal vice-president Rick Amantea, over a lunch of grilled salmon at Saltaire in Ambleside.
The group had earlier toured Ambleside and found traffic overpowered their conversations.
“Your main street is only functioning at 40 per cent of what it could be,” Kent said.
“When you look at your city, there are a lot of opportunities and a lot of things not happening.”

Kent’s group holds that great cities have a formula of ten great destinations. And each location should also be enriched by ten different activities, he says.
But a location doesn’t have to be an attraction like the Eiffel Tower to draw people.

For example, a city hall, library, laundry, coffee shop, and bank could be layered together.
“If you triangulate those things with other activities you’d have one of the busiest places in Canada.”

Busy is a positive concept for Kent, meaning regular people interacting.
“The important business of the city is in the social functions, not what happens in city hall,” he said.

Hearing this, Goldsmith-Jones nodded enthusiastically.
“I try to go to a different coffee shop every day and I find what I’m running into is so interesting, I have to move back my (municipal hall) meetings,” she told Kent.
Kent suggested West Vancouver citizens should be engaged in a process to imagine what new public spaces in Ambleside should encompass.

Investment Funding for New Urbanists

2007-11-16T14:53:00.000-08:00

Exerpts From New Urban News

Since the late 1990s, a number of people have tried to form investment pools that would provide money for new urbanist developments. It has not been easy going.

The Traditional Neighborhood Development Fund, started in 1997 by new urbanist developers Robert Chapman, Rob Dickson, and Lloyd Zuckerberg, obtained backing from the multi-billion-dollar Hillman Company and from a major shareholder in Goldman Sachs, but was never able to place any significant capital.

The Fund for New Urbanism, started in 2002 with Andres Duany, Sam Young, and businessman Wayne Huizenga as partners, hoped to finance several projects but is now limiting itself to just one — a 930-acre development near Edenton, North Carolina. Another pool, the Green Living Fund, which Kacey Fitzpatrick in the San Francisco Bay Area expected to have in operation by late 2006, has delayed its startup by at least several months.

Yet while some investment pools are being postponed or pared down, others are springing into existence. In January, the Denver-based Revival Fund Management of Dennis Fleming and Charlie Randall started its Urban Green Fund, which will invest in walkable, mixed-use developments within a half-mile of mass transit. Also importantly, philanthropies are coming forward. The New York-based FB Heron Foundation, for example, is investing in New Urbanism through funds such as the Bay Area Smart Growth Fund and the California Smart Growth Fund.

What seems to be under way is a sorting out of investment concepts and participants. In some instances, new urbanists tried to start funds before conditions were ripe. “We were way premature nine or 10 years ago,” says Chapman, who leads an established new urbanist development company, the North Carolina-based Traditional Neighborhood Development Partners. “I think the time is absolutely right now. We’ll make an announcement in midsummer about a new fund that will have a sustainability and green building aspect.”

Some funds have run into difficulty because they employed methods that diverged too much from the real estate field’s usual ways of doing business. DPZ’s Fund for New Urbanism, whose research and organizing were carried out primarily by Young and Demetri Baches, had what seemed an ingenious idea: The Fund would identify eight sites “ideally located for smart growth,” design plans and codes for them, secure entitlements so that construction could occur as-of-right, and transfer the approved plans to developers prepared to follow the plans.

There turned out to be at least two flaws in the Fund’s premise, according to sources consulted by New Urban News. First, developers resisted paying to obtain planned, entitled projects. “A developer doesn’t want to pay retail,” Chapman says. “He wants to pay wholesale.” Second, the Fund suffered from being seen as more a planning operation than a development organization. Baches acknowledges that DPZ did not want to devote time and energy to becoming a full-fledged developer itself. With a busy international planning practice, DPZ would have had a hard time managing several development projects. Thus the Fund settled upon carrying out the one project it had pushed the furthest — Sandy Point.

THE NEED FOR PATIENT CAPITAL
Analysts agree that there is clearly a need for pools of “patient capital.” Mainstream real estate financiers mostly have “a time horizon that is so compressed that you have to make [undesirable] compromises,” Chapman observes. A new urbanist development will surpass a conventional subdivision in value in the long run, he says, but first a great deal of money and time must be invested. It’s not uncommon for 15 years to be needed.

“We need to understand real estate as a 40-year asset class again,” says Fleming. Fleming expects to put money into a project for eight to nine years and to have a provision allowing the investment to be renewed twice. By comparison, conventional real estate funds usually “have a time horizon of five [years] plus two [extensions] or seven [years] plus two [extensions].”

Revival Fund Management expects its Urban Green Fund to amass $250 million and will invest it in approximately 20 to 30 projects in “progressive real estate markets” such as Denver, Seattle, Dallas-Fort Worth, Boston, Washington, and the Bay Area (except the purportedly overpriced city of San Francisco). Each project will get $7 million to $12 million from the Fund, says Fleming, the managing director. Properties will typically be “within a half-mile radius of frequent transit service” and will feature energy-efficient technologies, a fund statement says.

Once the first Urban Green Fund is established, a second fund would be started, and so on. Eventually Revival would like to establish a real estate investment trust (REIT) for properties that are new urbanist and “green.”

Criteria similar to Revival’s are already being used by the $100 million Rose Smart Growth Fund, which developer Jonathan Rose established about a year ago. After buying two buildings in downtown Seattle for $23 million last April, the Rose fund announced its second investment in November: half of the $38 million needed to convert the historic Clipper Mill buildings in northern Baltimore to 51,000 sq. ft. of arts and crafts studios, 62,000 sq. ft. of offices, 36 loft apartments, and other uses. The Rose Fund became a 50-50 partner with Struever Bros. Eccles & Rouse, which is developing the project, with Cho Benn Holback + Associates as architects. The property adjoins a light-rail stop in Jones Falls Valley.

A new urbanist investment of more limited duration is “mezzanine capital,” which Philip Blumberg’s American Ventures Realty in Coral Gables, Florida, supplied to projects such as market-based, moderate-income housing in the Little Havana section of Miami and the luxury-class Gold Avenue Lofts in downtown Albuquerque. Mezzanine financing — so called because it occupies a level between loans and long-term equity— generally is paid off after about 18 months. Blumberg says the investments made through his company’s South Florida Urban Initiatives Fund and New Mexico Urban Initiatives Fund, both of which are near being closed out, have performed well, delivering operating returns of 15 percent or better.

Blumberg says plans for a third urban initiatives fund, in New Jersey, fell through when Governor Jim McGreevey, with whom the fund organizers were working, unexpectedly resigned in November 2004 (after the governor admitted having an extramarital affair with a male state employee). “Given the current down cycle in residential real estate, we’re evaluating what would be the next form for a fund,” Blumberg says, noting that he remains “bullish” on this kind of investment.Chapman views better financial structures as a key to improving the quality of community development in America. When he rolls out a new fund later this year, many of his investors are expected to be “foundations, endowments, and other socially conscious organizations” comfortable with a long timeline.

A growing number of foundations are putting money from their endowments into environmentally and socially responsible real estate development. The Heron Foundation has placed $11 million (3.5 percent of its endowment) into the Bay Area and California Smart Growth Funds and the Canyon-Johnson Urban Fund, Genesis Workforce Housing Fund, and UrbanAmerica funds.

California has become a hotbed for smart growth funds, which often favor energy-efficient buildings along with urban locations near mass transit. The California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) has invested in funds such as the Green Development Fund — which was begun with the Houston-based real estate firm Hines, for construction of LEED pre-certified office buildings — and the $676 million CIM Urban Real Estate Fund. Two of the fund management companies most active in California are Pacific Coast Capital Partners and Pacific Realty Group. Among the sponsors of such funds is the Bay Area Council, which in 2002 started the $66 million Bay Area Smart Growth Fund I for projects in or near neighborhoods of below-median income and which has since launched a second fund.

Baches is now managing partner of DPZ Pacific, a firm licensed by DPZ to produce plans, designs, and codes in Australia, New Zealand, China, and other parts of East Asia. “ He expects to start funds in that part of the world, where he thinks the prospects for New Urbanism are bright.

Sustainable Fresh Local Markets

2007-11-09T12:03:00.000-08:00

Excerpt from New York Times

PORTLAND, Me. — Until last summer, the 136-year-old building at 28 Monument Square had been one of the most visible eyesores at the center of this energetic Atlantic Coast city. You would never know it now.

Most days, a steady stream of customers follow their noses, thirst and appetites into the building, home of the new Public Market House, where in a narrow corridor flanked by vendors they can buy fresh-cut flowers, cheese from Maine farms, a sandwich on fresh-baked bread and beer from state microbreweries.

The seven-month-old market occupies the basement and first floor of the partly renovated four-story building at the heart of downtown, which was last home to a failing surplus store.
Kris Horton, whose K. Horton Specialty Foods has become a local landmark, led an active public campaign last year to establish the new market after the Libra Foundation, a philanthropic organization in Maine, sold the last of its real estate holdings in Portland, including the larger indoor Portland Public Market, two blocks away. Ms. Horton and other food and farm-product vendors had worked in that market since 1998.

The new Public Market House, situated in a square that has supported a large outdoor seasonal farmers market for decades, has become the latest example of how fresh local food and downtown markets can stimulate activity in American cities, big and small.

Although the Public Market House is and will continue to be significantly smaller in size and sales than the old market it replaced, it will not be subsidized. Moreover, the Public Market House’s proximity to the existing outdoor Wednesday farmers’ market prompted the authors of a new economic study to propose promoting the indoor market as the centerpiece of a “market district.”

“Markets bring life to a city,” said Nelle Hanig, a business development specialist in Portland’s Economic Development Division, who helped accelerate the permit process to have the market built. “This one is already a destination. The location of the Public Market House is important to its success. It’s right in the middle of town. It’s becoming a focus of activity, and that’s always good in a city.”

The study, completed last month for the Portland Downtown District, an economic development agency, said that the Public Market House is already attracting enough shoppers to generate $1.2 million annually in sales. The building’s owner is planning to renovate the second floor to provide space for four or five more vendors, who could generate a further $1.2 million in sales.
The market district, the study said, might also include a covered outdoor market with 25 vendors on nearby Lancaster Lane, as well as producers selling goods on “day tables” in Monument Square.

The old market’s sale last August and the steady departure of vendors until its formal closing in January stirred passions throughout the city. Downtown workers and weekend shoppers from the suburbs loved the old market’s homegrown vendors and special events.

But vendors paid less than $20 a square foot to rent space in a market that cost the foundation as much as $75 a square foot, said Morris Fischer, president of CB Richard Ellis-the Boulos Company, which represented Guggenheim Real Estate, the New York investment firm that bought the market last August.

“I believe in the spirit of a public market being a community,” said Ms. Horton, while attending to early afternoon customers. “We found out that a lot of other people in Portland feel the same way.”

Inner City Retail

2007-10-25T09:11:00.000-07:00

post from Marvin a.k.a. eMarv

I was just reading the "Welcome to Metropolis" article in Retail Traffic magazine. The article states that "MacFarlane already has 2.2 billion to invest. Meanwhile, DLC Management Corp. Has joined with G.L. Blackstone & Associates to form DLC UrbanCore LLC and is sitting on $100 million in capital." Imagine that! (I wish I had $100M to sit on!) I actually know of a couple of potential infill sites in Baltimore that could be ideal for redevelopment.

BTW, for those that are not convinced about inner city retail, here's an impressive stat from the retail traffic article: "In 2002, ...inner city shoppers went outside their neighborhoods to buy $42 billion in goods, or 25 percent of the total $122 billion retail demand of those consumers, according to a study for the Boston-based Initiative for Competitive Inner City by Boston Consulting Group Analytics with Claritas Inc."

Another benefit (according to executives in the know) is the good returns. G. Lamont Blackstone of UrbanCore states that they are exceeding 13 percent returns and Victor MacFarlane says "the return rate for an initial $50 million (of a total $3 billion) invested by the California Public Employees' Retirement System was 30 percent in 1996."

Still not convinced, here's another extract from the article:
Baldwin Hills-and other inner city successes like Harlem USA, and Gulfgate Center in Houston-are convincing a widening pool of players that investment in minority communities is a good bet. "It will increasingly become mainstream as retailers recognize that there are few other commercial real estate opportunities in this country of the magnitude these present," says Capri CEO and Chairman Quinton Primo, III.

So where are the big inner city players looking next? (I thought you'd never ask... :)
According to Retail Traffic, they are looking in Seattle, Phoenix, Tucson, Dallas, Denver, Fort Worth, Austin, Fort Lauderdale, Tampa, Miami and Jacksonville. While Pittsburgh, Philadelphia and Detroit are flat.

AIA Top 10 Green Winner

2007-04-24T12:24:00.000-07:00

The Z6 House

Location: Santa Monica, Ca
Building type: Single-family residential
New construction
2,480 sq. feet (230 sq. meters)
Project scope: a single building
Urban setting
Completed August 2006
Rating: LEED for Homes v1 --Level: Platinum

The Z6 House is a single family residence that was added to a multi-family zoned lot with an existing duplex. The residence has 4 bedrooms and 2 1/2 baths., although the bedrooms open up to the rest of the house for added space when needed.

The house is constructed of factory built modules that were delivered to the site and erected on the site-built foundation over a period of 13 hours; the structural slab on grade serves as the finish floor for the first level. A roof deck takes advantage of views and a green roof with vegetation native to southern California.

This project was chosen as an AIA Committee on the Environment Top Ten Green Project for 2007. It was submitted by LivingHomes, in Santa Monica, California with Ray Kappe Architects, in Pacific Palisades, California. Additional project team members are listed on the "Process" screen.

Environmental Aspects
A commitment to minimizing the ecological footprint informed all aspects of the homes' design. The project team used the phrase "Six Zeroes" to describe the goals of the project: zero waste, zero energy, zero water, zero carbon, zero emissions, and zero ignorance.

The design maximizes the opportunities of the mild, marine climate with a passive cooling strategy using cross-ventilation and a thermal chimney. A 2.4-kilowatt photovoltaic array and a solar hot water collector take advantage of the sunny location, as does the daylighting strategy for the interior.

To create flexible interior spaces, all bedrooms have moveable wall partitions that can be opened to common areas for more space. Large exterior doors and large expanses of glass connect inside to outside and allow living space to expand to the outdoors.

New Urban Home by David Baker + Partners

2007-04-24T12:11:00.000-07:00

by Jetson Green

I wanted to talk about David Baker + Partners' (DBP) new design for a development called Blue Star Corner. The design is called the New Urban Home. The New Urban Home philosophy blends loft and condominium attitudes, with a modern feel that tends to build up--not out. This philosophy was brought to the Blue Star Corner development to create a sustainable (LEED for Homes), modern, urban design for the historic Park Avenue District in the Bay Area. All the appliances will be Energy Star, all the plumbing will be water efficient, and the site is located near mass transit. Blue Star Corner is planned for completion in mid-2007.

Green Features:
The developer, Holliday Development, and DBP hope to achieve LEED for Homes certification on this project. Here's some of what they're going to do: will use recycled and non-toxic building materials, non-endangered woods, galvanized metal, bamboo flooring, and environmentally-fabricated CaesarStone quartz countertops; will try to source materials locally as much as possible (keeps money in local economy + eliminates the transportation/gas premium); open spaces will feature sustainable landscaping by Conger Moss Guillard Landscape; appliances will be energy-efficient with Duravit, Kohler, and Bosch brands; and much more.

Other Amenities:
Units will include also Ann Sacks bathtubs, Sub-zero + Jenn-Air refrigerators, Bisazza tiles, Benjamin Moore paint, in-unit iPod docking stations, and personal garages with fold-up work stations. This is all going in with the general setup with a master bedroom, living room, kitchen, and flex room. To add to that, homes will be unique--they won't all have identical features, colors, or design. It's important to cater to individuality.

Extra Links:New Urban Home at Blue Star Corner [Generalized Case Study]David Baker + Partners Provide Design for "Green" Amsterdam-Inspired Townhouses [MHN]

Bike Racks as Art

2007-04-24T11:02:00.000-07:00

A new take on Public art? Found this interesting site today called Cycloops. They make very fun and whimsical ways to lock your bike up in the urban or suburban enviornments. You can even submit your own creative design for them to fabricate. Now that is Boho.

The Ren Building

2007-04-17T14:03:00.000-07:00

by Tylene

Architecture in China never ceases to amaze me—case in point—the REN Building. Copenhagen’s Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) proposed this eye-catching design over a year ago to coincide with Shanghai’s “Better City, Better Life” 2010 World Expo . The building takes its form from the Chinese character for person 人 (”ren”) and combines two buildings (one symbolic of mind and the other symbolic of body). We love the poetic inspiration that reflects both site and cultural sensitivity.

“The first building, emerging from the water, is devoted to the activities of the body, and houses the sports and water culture center. The second building emerging from land, is devoted to the spirit and enlightenment, and houses the conference center and meeting facilities. The two buildings meet in a 1000 room hotel, a building for living.”
It’ll be exciting to see if the plans for the project are approved. Check out more views and an animated fly-through of the project below.

The Sears "Modern" Home

2007-04-17T13:20:00.000-07:00

Ecerpt from Sears Archives.com

From 1908–1940, Sears, Roebuck and Company sold more than 100,000 homes through their mail-order Modern Homes program. Over that time Sears designed 447 different housing styles, from the elaborate multistory Ivanhoe, with its elegant French doors and art glass windows, to the simpler Goldenrod, which served as a quaint, three-room and no-bath cottage for summer vacationers. (An outhouse could be purchased separately for Goldenrod and similar cottage dwellers.) Customers could choose a house to suit their individual tastes and budgets.

Designing a Sears Home
The process of designing your Sears house began as soon as the Modern Homes catalog arrived at your doorstep. Over time, Modern Homes catalogs came to advertise three lines of homes, aimed for customers’ differing financial means: Honor Bilt, Standard Built, and Simplex Sectional.

Honor Bilt homes were the most expensive and finest quality sold by Sears. Joists, studs, and rafters were to be spaced 14 3/8 inches apart. Attractive cypress siding and cedar shingles adorned most Honor Bilt exteriors. And, depending on the room, interiors featured clear-grade (i.e., knot-free) flooring and inside trim made from yellow pine, oak, or maple wood. Sears’s catalogs also reported that Standard Built homes were best for warmer climates, meaning they did not retain heat very well. The Simplex Sectional line, as the name implies, contained simple designs. Simplex houses were frequently only a couple of rooms and were ideal for summer cottages.

Retail or Gallery??

2007-04-16T19:07:00.000-07:00

Excerpts from Superfuture

Amsterdam...
Do you ever get that ' why-haven't-i-discovered-this-place-before' feeling? it just happened to me when visiting this interesting streetsmart store [hilariously, brian jensen of copenhagen's wood wood knew ALL about it and first informed me of this spot]. see an unexpectedly varied and hot range of streetwear, sneakers, watches, cosmetics of dr. hauschka [yo!] and in the near future an increased selection of magazines, books and CDs too. sneakers can be customized to the max, rendering them one of a kind trophies. as with all the other items, goods are carefully selected in order to offer exclusivity and quality. an added value element here are the regular art exhibitions of both emerging and established street artists plus other product related events.

Clientele:
International to say the least but also a wide local following. even some sort of cult status in japan since appearing in brutus magazine in 2002. they're all metric groupies...

Service:
Friendly and personal: leave that to bright-eyed, soft-spoken and globetrotting owner ido who's laid-back and knowledgeable ways add personality to this store.

Interior:
With a name like this it ain't hard to figure out the size but it also gives you a clue about its sobre look which in turn proves to be the proper context for 90 sqm.'s funky merchandise and art display.

Building the New Urbanism

2007-04-12T14:10:00.000-07:00

by Erica Ryberg

Urban planners take a cue from pre-WWII cities and towns.

It takes Kiki Wallace one minute to get to work. It’s no accident. He built his neighborhood, Prospect New Town, to be walkable, with wide sidewalks, narrow streets and parks scattered throughout. Most notably, its town center is within five walking minutes of every home.

To create Prospect, the Longmont, Colorado, developer worked with star planners Andrés Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk. Since its construction, the town has attracted a great deal of interest in the planning community. “We have people from all over the state of Colorado and from other parts of the United States and internationally coming to look at it,” said Wallace. “They’re all wanting to emulate this type of development.”

Post-World War II-style suburban planning assumes that everyone has a car and wants to use it. This model, some urban planners believe, is what accounts for the growing epidemic f obesity, heart disease and diabetes. Now, a growing number of environmentalists, architects and urban planners, including Duany and Plater-Zyberk, are putting their minds together to create human-scale neighborhoods, where parks, shops and schools are all close enough to walk or bike to. They are part of the New Urbanist movement, the most coordinated effort in this country to create these kinds of neighborhoods. “New Urbanism is basically a set of principles to get to that holy grail of a mixed-use, mixed-income, fully socially integrated, non-automobile-dependent kind of place,” said Emily Talen, a professor of urban planning and author of New Urbanism and American Planning: The Conflict of Cultures.

Planned down to the size of the numbers on the houses, New Urbanist communities have a striking regularity about them; the first town Duany and Plater-Zyberk created served as the picket-fenced, pastel-tinted backdrop of the dystopian film The Truman Show.

If, conversely, New Urbanism isn’t edgy enough, head to Arcosanti, architect Paolo Soleri's experimental town rising from the desert north of Phoenix, Arizona. To capitalize on space, Soleri took advantage of the city’s cliff-side location to minimize the use of streets and build in three dimensions. The result is an ultra-compact and contiguous sculptural mélange of tilt-up concrete slabs, high-density housing and work space, sidewalks and...bells. Lots of bells. The manufacture of bronze bells, tourism and workshops support the design interns who are the main workers and occupants of the still-nascent city. Despite Arcosanti’s acclaim as a visionary means of creating urban space (Soleri was honored in July at the White House for his work), it hasn’t yet caught on commercially.

New Urbanism emulates many of the qualities of pre-World War II developments, in part by tacking front porches onto its houses, detaching the garages and shrinking the lawns down to the size of postage stamps. For this reason the movement sometimes goes by the moniker neotraditionalism. That means the features New Urbanists lovingly include in their designs are also available in many older towns and cities across the country. Take, for instance, a city neighborhood such as Uptown, in Minneapolis, or small towns like Portland, Maine, Flagstaff, Arizona, or Madison Wisconsin. All have sidewalks, public transport and discernible centers - central characteristics of New Urbanism. “If it’s walkable and compact and diverse and so forth,” said Duany. “Insofar as it is that, then it’s New Urbanist.”

Base-Miami

2007-04-12T13:53:00.000-07:00

For better or worse, the Lincoln Road Mall on South Miami Beach is quite reminiscent of New York's 7th Avenue in the West Village. One shop however, Base, stands out from the rest by offering an exceptionally curated suite of both products and services.

Owner Steven Giles says "we're less about labels and more about the ongoing (and less easily defined) culture of the store, but amongst the labels we’re most proud to be associated with would definitely include Isabella Capetto, Nice Collective, Lemar and Dauley, Maharishi, Martin Margiela and Comme Des Garcons."

"Base is not a specific need-based store, like Sears. Your reasons are less clearly defined. One of my little secret ambitions is to redefine the concept of a department store. By and large, the concept hasn’t changed in the past 100 years. I like to find the unseen links between things. Base has its finger on the pulse of modern cultural living: it’s part of a tribe.

I say to my buying team, ‘Don’t think competitively; think creatively.’ We are selling the mix as DJs sell theirs. I recently read the book, Pattern Recognition, in which the central character seeks cool. That is the job I would love to have. She’s label-phobic, I love that! Over a period of time, my assistant and I have developed a scanning process: this is from laid-down patterns over time that are recognized by your brain. "

But it's not just about clothing and accessories, there's a service slant at Base. An in-house salon, Snip, and a CD Bar offer visitors style and satisfaction on a more soulful level. And the folks at Base have also been known to publish music, design resort uniforms and produce events.

Information about the store and several items for sale can be found on their site, baseworld.com.

The "Branding" of Your Neighborhood

2007-04-11T14:37:00.000-07:00

by Frank A. Mills

For the most part traditional urban planning has failed our urban neighborhoods. Rather than being driven by practical considerations and a real understanding of urban decline, much of what passes for urban planning is driven more by wishful thinking than anything else. Ultimately such planning is destined for failure.

If traditional urban planning is not working, let's get rid of it. It's time for a new approach.I hesitate to mention this word, its full of capitalistic connotations at best, greed, at worse, and in between, blind spin-doctoring.

The word is branding.There, I've said it. Before you shut down the blog let me at least tell you what I am talking about.

Think about what made made our urban neighborhoods a place that people wanted to live in, in the first place. I know that when I was a kid, my parents moved to Baltimore's Windsor Hills neighborhood because it had the reputation of being a nice place to live and raise a family. Now, isn't that a form of branding?

Here in Cleveland, many of the older, and not so old, residents of Glenville remember when that neighborhood was known as Cleveland's "Gold Coast" because of its many upscale boutiques, and before that, "Cleveland's Garden Basket" from its many truck farms. Branding, again.But what makes this particular branding significant, is that most of the current residents who mention this, didn't live in Glenville when it was the Gold Coast, and certainly not when it was "Cleveland's Garden Basket."

Although Glenville is in serious decline, the Brand remains.So much so, that some of Glenville's residents want to revive the "garden" part and have Glenville become known as the "Western Entrance" to the International Gardens and Rockefeller Park.

Okay, so where am I going with this?

Do we not buy a particular brand of car because of what it offers in quality and safety, price, and amenities? Do we not buy into the brand – its quality of life and affordability – of a neighborhood when we make decisions about where we are going to live?When we think about revitalizing urban neighborhoods this is where we need to begin, with the neighborhood's brand, with its negative and positive connotations. I suggest that before any plans are made that we articulate the spirit, the qualitative essence, of place. This is the unarticulated brand.

Just as we take cars for test drives before we purchase, we need to walk the neighborhood, to talk to the people, to eat in the restaurants, and to drink in the pubs. We need to learn to feel what made, and makes, the neighborhood a neighborhood — before we create plans.

We need to think of neighborhoods as a "her" – an ever-evolving living organism – not an "it" devoid of life.

We need to understand why she is in decline (if she is), not from the perspective of urban experts, but by hearing, seeing, and feeling her story. We need to see her through the lenses of the camera. We need to see her inside out, through the windows of her homes, stores, places of work, and cafás and the lives of her residents.We need to become part of her life, just as we must make her part of our life. We need to feel her embedded poetry. And when we do, we will discover her essence, and be able to articulate it, to "brand" it.

The brand is not the neighborhood's essence; rather the brand proclaims her essence. When we realize her essence, we have something we can latch hold of, something that we can "sell"— an urban neighborhood where people that want to visit and to live in. Done correctly, an amazing phenomena will take place: residents will begin to demand all that the brand promises (just like they expect and demand certain qualities from commercial brands): good schools,livable homes, retail amenities; everything that makes a neighborhood home. The seeds to stop decline are sown, and the neighborhood begin to experience, once again, the realization of her vital essence through development that truly builds upon who she really is.

Let's throw away the master plans. Let's start spending our energy in discovering, and experiencing, the embed poetry, the essence, of our urbanneighborhoods. Then, and only then, do we have that hitherto elusive essential quantity necessary for the revitalize our urban neighborhoods

Analyzing Real Estate

2007-04-11T13:04:00.000-07:00

by Clifford A. Hockley

Investing in real estate is a tricky business, and like the stock market, every investment will not be a great one. As a matter of fact, what makes a great real estate investment is keyed as much to timing and interest rates as it is to the true operating costs of a property.

I will grant you that every marketplace is different, and market conditions may force you into overpaying for a property you really want, but if return on investment is what you want, you cannot afford to overpay for real estate investments if you expect to retire on the income. Sure, there is a lot to be said for leverage and appreciation, but at the end of the day the cash flow is what counts.

So how does an investor assure himself that s/he is making the right decision and assembling an income and expense statement that is accurate?

1. Examine many similar properties at the same time.
It is helpful to examine similar pro formas at the same time. You will see what one owner or broker may include, and what another may leave out. Look at the market to see how long it is taking to find a new tenant. Talk to other real estate brokers, lenders and property managers in the market to establish a baseline.

2. Review operating numbers for the past three years.
Most financial analysis reports will exclude capital expenses. Bear in mind that you must reserve for capital expenses. The roof will leak, the HVAC will fail, and the main water line will break. I guarantee things will happen that you do not expect. Prepare financially for potential problems. Remember that real estate is an asset that wears out: doors need to be painted, carpets replaced, new faucets installed, etc. By reviewing three years of income and expenses, you will have a much better idea of vacancy rates as well as real expenses.

3. Obtain comparable rent income numbers.
Drive around the neighborhoods where your potential property is located. Call the brokers and the managers to find out what the rents are. Are there any concessions being given to rental units or lease space? Use this information to verify the figures you received for the property you wish to buy.

4. Examine the vacancy rate in the market place.
Each market and specific type of real estate investment has a vacancy rate. Some locations are better than others, and will perpetually have a higher occupancy rate. Look for concessions that have been offered. How will they affect your cash flow when you own the property? Why is your property full? Did the seller hastily rent to tenants from emergency aid shelters (yes, this has happened in weak markets). Banks will not loan on buildings with more than a 5% vacancy rate. They will, however, offer construction loans if you are renovating the building. This may give you some time to find tenants to fill a building, otherwise you will be forced to guarantee the rents, which means your hard-earned cash will not be at work making more money for you.

5. Talk to an appraiser regarding common incomes and expenses in the marketplace.
This seems like common sense, but no one seems to do it. The agent representing you is motivated to close a transaction. They may not be experienced, or may not provide all of the information you need. You need accurate information to make an informed decision.

6. Review the BOMA and IREM expense analysis books for the marketplace.
These books are updated every year and can give you an in depth look at how properties are operating.

7. Ask for schedule "E" tax return information for the property.
Many sellers will refuse to supply the schedule, but in my mind, the proof is in the pudding.
In my conservative opinion, cash flow is what the investor seeks. If your property has an 8% -10% positive cash flow after all of the adjustments discussed above, it should make sense. Many buyers also use CAP rates as an indicator of value; I find it to be a lagging indicator if you compare your property to others in the marketplace. Just because other investors are buying a 4% CAP property, does not mean you should. Maybe the market is overheated, perhaps there is more demand than supply, maybe you should look in a market with 8% - 11% CAP rates, or perhaps low interest rates give you the opportunity to buy something with a low CAP rate and still make money.

You should look at comparison indicators as you pursue your investment strategy:
CAP rate, cash-on-cash return, debt coverage ratios, price per unit (or price per square foot for comparable properties in the same marketplace), percentage of expenses (are they inline or understated). Don't forget to look at the financing and due diligence costs as part of your transaction.

All this analysis may mean that you will make lower offers than another investor. It may mean that you will not be willing to pay as much as a seller wants.
On the other hand, do you want to buy a property that will not appraise, or worse yet, not have a positive cash flow? I do not think so.

Park Forest: the new community model

2007-04-11T11:17:00.000-07:00

Exerpt from Metropolitan Planning Council

South Chicago suburban Park Forest has been a model community from its inception. A town built in the late 1940s as one of the nation's first-large scale planned unit developments, Park Forest 's success gave rise to a format that shaped thousands of communities across the country for decades. It had one of the first regional shopping malls, the village's main economic engine for years, which only fell on hard times when shoppers took their pocketbooks to newer indoor malls in the 1990s. The village recognized the futility of a Park Forest Mall with no major anchors and converted its failed mall to a town center—DownTown Park Forest—cutting streets through parking lots, taking down outmoded buildings and reinventing itself. Now, once again, the village is leading the way, modernizing suburban homeownership opportunities, breathing new life into the downtown and attracting new investment, proving that Park Forest is building its legacy and creating a great place to call home.

The groundwork for this transformation was laid in 2003, when village leaders invited the Urban Land Institute-Chicago and Campaign for Sensible Growth to convene a Technical Assistance Panel (TAP) to assist with increasing the viability of the newly created DownTown. The industry experts who comprised the panel offered several workable strategies as reported in Building on the Legacy: Creating a New DownTown. In the few short years since the TAP took place, many of the recommendations have been implemented, creating a new legacy in historic Park Forest .

Project "Row Houses"

2007-04-11T11:02:00.000-07:00

Exerpt from New Your Times.

ON a strangely balmy late autumn afternoon, while the art world busied itself in Miami with beachfront reservations and limo drivers, Rick Lowe was, as he generally is, on Holman Street in southeast Houston’s predominantly black Third Ward, greeting another out-of-towner.

In the gloaming, decrepit houses and weedy lots dotted some surrounding blocks, on the edges of which were new double-garage brick homes — signs of encroaching gentrification, an unwanted side effect of Mr. Lowe’s work.

Although it’s hard to tell at a glance, this stretch of Holman may be the most impressive and visionary public art project in the country — a project that is miles away, geographically and philosophically, from Chelsea and Art Basel and the whole money-besotted paper-thin art scene.

Mr. Lowe, a lanky, amiable, remarkably youthful-looking 45-year-old artist from Alabama, moved to Houston 21 years ago and lives here in the Third Ward, where he founded Project Row Houses. In 1990, “a group of high school students came over to my studio,” he recalled. “I was doing big, billboard-size paintings and cutout sculptures dealing with social issues, and one of the students told me that, sure, the work reflected what was going on in his community, but it wasn’t what the community needed. If I was an artist, he said, why didn’t I come up with some kind of creative solution to issues instead of just telling people like him what they already knew. That was the defining moment that pushed me out of the studio.”

He tried to think afresh what it meant to be a truly political artist, beyond devising the familiar agitprop, gallery decoration and plop-art-style public sculpture. He considered what the German artist Joseph Beuys once described as “the enlarged conception of Art,” which includes, as Beuys put it, “every human action.” Life itself might be a work of art, Mr. Lowe realized: art can be the way people live.

And the Third Ward could be his canvas. He was inspired by John Biggers, the late African-American muralist who painted black neighborhoods of shotgun houses like the ones on Holman Street and showed them to be places of pride and community, not poverty and crime. “It hit me,” Mr. Lowe recalled, “that we should find an area like the one that Biggers painted that was historically significant and bring it to life.”

Behind him as he spoke, a phalanx of 22 gleaming shotgun houses stretched across two blocks. Built in 1930 as tenant shacks, derelict by the early ’90s, they were bought by Mr. Lowe and a coalition of artists and others. To Mr. Lowe they were like “found objects.”

Seed money came from the National Endowment for the Arts and from the Elizabeth Firestone Graham Foundation. The director of the Menil Collection gave his staff Mondays off to help renovate. Chevron redid the outside of a dozen buildings. Hundreds of volunteers pitched in to clear trash and sweep up used needles, hang wallboard and fortify porches. A local church adopted a house, and so did people and families from the neighborhood.

Top 10 RE Investor Financing Mistakes

2007-04-10T13:08:00.000-07:00

Excerpt from: lassitermarketing

1. Quitting the Day Job Too Soon
Repeat after me: “Equity does not pay the bills.” I see it happen all the time. An investor gets a few rentals and decides to quit the day job to pursue investing full time. Big mistake. Don't quit the job until you have 12 months of living expenses saved up and/or monthly cash flow equal to what you were making at your day job.

2. Being Broke and Greedy
My mentor used to say, “You can't be broke AND greedy." In RE investor world it means that if you have no money to put into a deal you better be prepared to pay high rates or give up some equity to a partner.

3. Underestimating Holding Costs
If you're a flipper, in most areas today, your properties are taking a lot longer to move. Factor in ALL of your holding costs to the budget - loan payments, utilities, etc - so you don't lose all your profit.

4. Not Properly Setting Up Your Entity
If you list your occupation as real estate investor on a mortgage loan application, you are in for a tough road ahead with the underwriter. You may as well say you are a drug dealer. Same goes for naming your LLC. Try not to reference anything having to do with flipping or foreclosure help or anything like that. Stick to an easy name to deal with like Acme, LLC.

5. Paying Cash for a Property
Paying cash for a property is fine as long as you don't need the money back anytime soon. If you do, then you're trying to get an unseasoned cash out refinance and if you're lucky enough to find a lender to do the loan, you will pay through the nose for it.

6. Buying a Rental That Won't Cash Flow
WHY would you do that? Remember, equity does not pay the bills. This is the main reason why investors go broke.

7. Deeding the Property to an LLC Before It Is In Permanent Financing
Let's say you buy a property with private money and take title in your LLC. When you go to refinance it, the lender will either require you to deed it out of your LLC before closing or they will deny the loan outright. Risk mitigators are telling lenders that the loans that have the highest rate of default are usually in names of LLC's so many lenders won't touch them if they've EVER been titled in your LLC. Just take title in your name, get your financing set and THEN put it into your LLC for asset protection.

8. Using hard money That Doesn't Include Repairs
This is just dumb. Just use a 100% conventional loan at half the rate and ¼ the fees and have the seller pay closing costs since you're funding the repairs out of pocket anyway. Same goes for companies that will cross-collateralize equity in another property to fund repairs. Just get a HELOC yourself and pay ½ the interest rate.

9. Listing for Sale While In Short Term Financing
I have guys come to me all the time to try to refinance their short term hard money loan because the property they are flipping has not sold. Good luck. Why? Well, you have a vacant, unseasoned, rental property that has been listed on the MLS within the last 6 months. Even if we can get a lender to do the refinance you will have a prepay penalty that will make you cry.

10. Not Having Adequate Cash Reserves
You should not own a property and have no money in the bank or available credit on a line of credit. Something will come up and then you will be forced to make a bad decision. This is a business and every business needs cash reserves.

H&M brand COS starts to sell Kronan bikes

2007-04-10T09:58:00.000-07:00

Just before the Easter holidays it was announced that H&M founded retail chain COS (Collection of style) will start to sell the Swedish bike Kronan at its newly opened shops in England, Netherlands, Belgium and Germany. Kronan bikes are based on a classic Swedish military model (they actually started once by selling from an old stock of military bikes).

Maria Brunstedt, Managing Director of Kronan comments the collaboration like this: “We have noticed increased interest from other countries, and the timeless design of our bicycle has attracted consumers from the Netherlands and Japan for some time now. Now we have matured enough to take an additional step out into the international market. We are increasing our marketing efforts and are looking forward to meeting many more quality and style-conscious Europeans.”

UniverCity's Flex Units

2007-04-09T11:39:00.000-07:00

From : Smart Bylaws Guide – Secondary Suites – Multi-Family Flex Units

New zoning for the mixed-use development called UniverCity in Burnaby at Simon Fraser University allows suites in strata townhouses or apartments. These “multi-family flex units” are minimum 74 square metre (796.5 square feet) dwellings containing a defined area for potential rental accommodation. The potential rental must be at least 24 square metres (258.3 square feet) and not more than 35 percent of the gross floor area of the dwelling.

The Flexsuite must:

Contain a secondary kitchen area with a compact range or microwave oven and built-in cook top, compact refrigerator, sink, counter, cabinets and venting
Have at least one closet and bathroom with a toilet, sink and bathtub or shower
Be wired for an independent telephone connection prior to occupancy
Have a separate lockable entrance door providing direct access to the exterior of the dwelling unit.

Not less than ten and not more than 50 percent of units in a multi-family dwelling shall be flex units, and the dwelling must provide a common washing machine and dryer for every 20, or part thereof, multi-family flex units. If the unit is available for rent it must be registered with the student housing registry at the University.

Burnaby Zoning Bylaw No. 4742 (Consolidated to May 12, 2003) – see Section 3 Definitions and Schedule VIII – Off-Street Parking

Tokyo Green Space?

2007-04-05T07:06:00.000-07:00

Exerpt from Multi-Housing News, By Diana Mosher

Midtown Tower, the tallest skyscraper in this city, is now open for business. The 53-story mixed-use building is the centerpiece of Tokyo Midtown, the most diverse mixed-use project to date, by Tokyo-based Mitsui Fudosan. Comprising more than one million square feet, Tokyo Midtown was designed around the concept "diversity on the green." In compliance with a local ordinance, 40 percent of the 25-acre site -- which was formerly occupied by Japan's Self-Defense Agency -- is now green space in the densely populated Roppongi neighborhood.

The 140 existing trees removed during construction have been replanted, according to specifications by landscape architect EDAW. The architectural team also includes: master architect SOM; retail designers Communication Arts Inc. and Kengo Kuma and Associates; multi-housing designers Jun Aoki & Associates; and Sakakura Associates Architects and Engineers.

According to Toshihide Ichikawa, managing officer and general manager of Mitsui Fudosan Co. Ltd.'s Tokyo Midtown Development Department, mixed use is a relatively new concept in Japan that has steadily gained acceptance over the past 10 years. The Tokyo Midtown complex is likely to advance this real estate model. In addition to three office buildings (Midtown Tower, the 24-story Midtown East, and the 13-story Midtown West), it also features 410 rental units at Tokyo Midtown Residences, 107 Oakwood Premier long-term stay/serviced residences, and the Ritz Carlton Hotel—and Park Residences at Ritz Carlton—on the top floors of the Midtown Tower.

The city within a city is also home to the city's largest medical center, a 24-hour food market, a museum designed by Tadao Ando, a convention hall, and an array of retail choices. Tokyo is known for its sophisticated and efficient rail transportation system, and Tokyo Midtown's transit-oriented design provides interesting lessons for urban planners, developers and architects.

The project is attracting international business, and all of its commercial space is fully leased, according to Toshihiko Omachi, project leader, planning and administration group, Mitsui Fudosan. Tenants include Cisco Systems Inc. and Yahoo Japan Corporation.

The design of the public areas was an important consideration in filling the space. "SOM was one of six companies we considered for master architect," added Ichikawa. "SOM proposed a very open and spacious concept with an emphasis on the plaza and square, and they incorporated the green areas into the overall design.

"The design of Midtown Tower was also critical. "If the building had been overpowering, it would have looked out of place," Ichikawa said. "This design is elegant and nicely integrated into the skyline. The sky is for everyone [to enjoy], not just for us."

According to Ichikawa, "When we procured the site, the local economy was in decline and was also feeling the effects of 9/11. We wanted to contribute to the rebuilding of Tokyo's reputation. Now, the entire world is doing better. Our exports are good. Japanese banks have completed writing off bad debt, and the Japanese economy right now is in good shape."

Mitsui Fudosan is project manager of Tokyo Midtown and a 40-percent investor with five other companies who are also business owners and have funded the project: National Mutual Insurance Federation of Agricultural Cooperatives, Meiji Yasuda Life Insurance Company, Sekisui House, Ltd., Fukoku Mutual Life Insurance Company, and Daido Life Insurance Company. Outside Japan, Mitsui Fudosan also has a presence in New York, Hawaii, Europe, Shanghai and Singapore.

Fruitvale: Challanged TOD

2007-04-04T14:07:00.000-07:00

from New Urban News

Fruitvale Village in Oakland, California, has become a reluctant symbol of the difficulties that transit-oriented development (TOD) can encounter.

Three years after the $100 million collection of apartments, retail, and community and professional services opened next to a Bay Area Rapid Transit station in the Fruitvale neighborhood, four of its 23 retail spaces remain empty. Slowness in filling the stores has been a source of frustration for the Unity Council, which sponsored the project.

The slowness has given developers and transit specialists yet another case to cite when cautioning about putting large volumes of retail space in TOD projects — at least in unproven locations. Dan Parolek, a principal at Opticos Design in Berkeley, says a developer at the Pleasant Hill BART station in Contra Costa County tried to use the example of Fruitvale “as the reason why they should do very little retail within the project plan.”

Fruitvale’s problems do not seem insurmountable — the vacancies are now on the way to being filled, says Jeff Pace, Unity Council’s vice president of finance and business opportunities. But they have sparked discussion about how much spending commuters can be counted on to do in TOD projects. They have also highlighted the need for effective parking strategies.

Pace, who joined Unity Council in 2004, after the retail problems emerged, says Fruitvale Village has been a huge success in most respects. The 3.7-acre development is now a vital center for its predominantly Latino section of Oakland. The Village’s 114,000 square feet of office, professional, and community space include a public library, a Head Start program, a community-based medical clinic, a children’s counseling clinic, and a senior center, as well as the Council’s headquarters. The project’s 47 apartments, ten of them designated “affordable,” rented quickly and have remained in demand.

Jeff Ordway, manager of property development for BART, credits the Council with helping to strengthen International Boulevard, an old commercial corridor nearby. Retail buildings on International “went from 40 percent vacancy in 2000 to less than 5 percent in 2004,” he notes.The one blot on Fruitvale’s achievement is the tortoise-like progress in filling the 40,000 square feet of retail. Some observers fault the design, pointing out that the stores are arranged along a pedestrian plaza — one that the station’s 6,500 daily commuters have no need to traverse. BART more or less mandated that the main commuter parking garage be built where it would create a short and direct route between commuters’ cars and the station, says Pace, noting, “Pedestrians getting out of their cars have no natural incentive to walk through the retail.”

Parolek says that placing the retail along a pedestrian-only plaza and then converting a city street between the plaza and International Boulevard into a pedestrian-only passage probably harmed the retail by making it harder for motorists to become familiar with the Village’s offerings.

Unity Council, like many nonprofit organizations with a social mission, was inexperienced at managing a retail center, and made mistakes in signing up merchants. National retailers were turned away while independent local merchants were favored. A locals-first policy can, of course, enhance local character. In Fruitvale, though, it led to selecting some merchants who were inexperienced and undercapitalized — unable to survive when pedestrian traffic fell short of expectations. “We turned away Starbucks twice,” says Pace. “That’s a really stupid thing to do.”

The Council did not obtain adequate legal protections. Its standard lease lacked a “going dark” clause, which would have stipulated that if a tenant did not get its business operating by a certain date, the agreement would terminate. “We have someone who has been paying rent for 21 months and is still not open,” Pace acknowledges. That business is now expected to open late this year. Leases contained no ban on retailers having other locations close by. “A record store had one store a block and a half away; they couldn’t make them both work,” says Pace, who is articulate and candid on what to do and what not to do.

FINDING REMEDIES
The Council has sharpened its leasing strategy in the past two years, and is now giving people more reasons for exploring the plaza. “We’ve been running a farmers’ market right in front of the BART patrons,” Pace says. “Our plan is to extend it through the main Fruitvale plaza.” In the summer, an outdoor cinema operates on Friday evenings in the plaza. “First Thursdays,” an event featuring food and mariachi music, operated until early October and will return in the spring.

The Council has introduced seating, better lighting, and other improvements to the passage from the plaza to International Boulevard. A public market will soon occupy one of the buildings along the passage, and there will be places for permanent outdoor stalls as well as stalls that can be assembled and disassembled each day, Pace says. Small merchants will sell arts and crafts and handmade foods such as tortillas.

At the end of October, negotiations were under way to fill the plaza’s four remaining vacancies. “We think we’re really turning the corner,” he says. Architect Ernesto Vasquez, a principal in McLarand, Vasquez, Emsiek & Partners, involved in the project for years, says Fruitvale Village is becoming a destination for people seeking Latino products and services. He urges developers: “Be patient; you need to avoid being rushed into getting tenants, and not getting the right tenants.” Delaying the retail component of a project or building it in phases may reduce the risk of its failing. Vasquez thinks conditions at Fruitvale will improve when the project’s second phase, containing approximately 300 to 450 housing units, is built.

“Retail is the Achilles’ heel of TODs,” warns Richard Cervero, a transportation specialist who teaches at Berkeley. “If not done right, it can really stigmatize a development as a loser.” Richard Willson, a Cal Poly Pomona planning professor who has advised BART on parking policy, says, “Among developers, I find a bit of naiveté about how people use transit facilities.” They often don’t realize that many commuters rush through, not buying much, Willson says. Ordway says commuters generally constitute a tertiary market — less important than the people who live in the surrounding community and individuals who live or work in the project area.Ordway says developers would be wise to study a TOD project that Calthorpe Associates was involved in planning next to a BART station in Richmond, north of Berkeley. There, buildings along a pathway to the station were constructed so they could start as wholly residential and be converted to live/work — with street-level offices or retail — after the location proves itself.

RECONSIDERING PARKING
BART has abandoned its policy of providing free parking at many of its East Bay stations. BART has also modified its requirement that when parking lots at a station are built upon, an equal number of new parking spaces must be provided, typically in garages or decks. The changes bode well for future TOD, by eliminating major financial hurdles.

Patrick Siegman at Nelson\Nygaard consultants in San Francisco, says the next step should be the establishment, by municipalities, of “parking benefit districts” in neighborhoods around transit stations. Commuters could pay to use designated on-street spaces. The revenue would be devoted to public improvements desired by the neighborhood, such as better sidewalks, lighting, and landscaping. “At $4 each for 250 cars, you’d have $1,000 a day in revenue to spruce up the neighborhood,” Siegman calculates. Parking benefit districts are being considered at two Oakland stations, Ordway says.Despite challenges, TOD is gaining momentum. On land owned by BART, nearly $2 billion of capital has already been invested in TOD or is in process or in negotiations, according to Ordway. At Pleasant Hill, which contains substantial housing and employment, approximately 40,000 square feet of space is expected to be available for retail. “It’s not just pure retail,” Parolek emphasizes. “It’s allowed to be used for professional services such as a dentist or optometrist.”

Bohemian today, high-rent tomorrow

2007-04-02T08:49:00.000-07:00

Excerpts from BusinessWeek online By Maya Roney

Want to know where a great place to invest in real estate will be five or 10 years from now? Look at where artists are living now.

Sociologists and policymakers have long been touting art and culture as the cure-all to economically depressed neighborhoods, cities, and regions. The reason? It has been proven that artists—defined as self-employed visual artists, actors, musicians, writers, etc.—can stimulate local economies in a number of ways.

Artists are often an early sign of neighborhood gentrification. "Artists are the advance guard of what's hip and cool," says Bert Sperling, founder and president of Portland (Ore.)-based Sperling's Best Places and compiler of BusinessWeek.com's list of the Best Places for Artists in America.

Creativity Leads to Growth
Artists, because of their typically lower incomes, usually need to seek out less expensive, developing neighborhoods where they can afford the rent. But because of their creativity they are able to fix up these areas, eventually attracting hip boutiques, galleries, and restaurants. Not all artists are starving. While some are able to achieve success writing, acting, painting, or dancing, others get tired of scraping by as waiters or bartenders and sometimes apply their abilities in more entrepreneurial ways.

Anne Markusen, an economist and professor at the University of Minnesota's Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs and a leading researcher on the effects of the arts on regional economics, once profiled an abstract painter whose work is now displayed on ceilings and in MRI machines in hospitals across the country. In Markusen's research, artists have also been found to stimulate innovation on the part of their suppliers. A painter may need a certain type of frame that is not manufactured, forcing the frame maker to create a new design that happens to also work well for other artists.

But Markusen also maintains that artists bring more than culture to a community. "Businesses don't often understand the extent to which art affects them," Markusen says. "[Artists] are just as important as science and technology companies."

Nonarts businesses also use artist contractors to improve product design, help with marketing, or even use dramatic theory to solve employee relationship issues. Being a cultural center also helps local businesses attract employees who want to be able to regularly go to the ballet or the theater, hear authors read from their latest books, or attend art gallery openings.

Follow the Money
Due to the individual nature and economics of their work, artists are also some of the most itinerant professionals out there. When relocating, they often look for cities and towns that already have high concentrations of artists and a young, racially and ethnically diverse population. The presence of a nurturing art community in the form of art societies and centers is also essential, especially to young artists.

A low cost of living is important, but many artists make financial sacrifices to live near an art-rich urban center or live in a cheaper neighborhood. Few struggling artists can afford to live in neighborhoods like New York's SoHo and Greenwich Village, or even Williamsburg, which once were artistic havens before attracting wealthier residents. Now you are more likely to find New York-based artists in the Bronx, Brooklyn, or even Philadelphia.

In addition to the presence of like-minded individuals, proximity to wealth is also important. The fact of the matter is that artists can seldom earn a living, let alone become rich, selling to other artists. They need wealthy benefactors to buy their paintings or support their local symphony, which explains why each of the places in the U.S. that we found to be the best for artists are in or located near centers of wealth. Los Angeles, No. 1 on our list, is most commonly associated with the film industry. While the city provides great opportunities for actors and directors, there are equally rich prospects for musicians, artists, writers, and dancers. Of course, the majority of these people can't afford to live in Beverly Hills—at least not until they get their big break—and instead opt for more affordable digs in areas like Echo Park.

Lifestyle Centers & European Roots

2007-04-01T14:35:00.000-07:00

Exerpt from Good Malls and Bad Cities by Philip Nobel

There’s really nothing wrong with Santana Row. There should be, of course; we’ve all been bred to hate malls, and what could be more hateful than a mall masquerading as a chic, vaguely European town? Taking advantage of the sun in San Jose (the more or less real place it is situated in), the mall does away with interiority, offering shoppers an artfully paved and fountained plaza, arcaded sidewalks, live music, “street food,” and oversize chess in a shaded square—all to differentiate yet another collection of shops from the market. Crate and Barrel, Design Within Reach, and the Container Store anchor one end of the neighborhood, luring you with the promise of a design-rich life.

Santana Row has a hotel too—a very good one—right on the main drag, and walking out the huge stone portal of the front door at night, seeing the sidewalk cafés packed under the brick arches and the lovers all atangle at the glass-and-steel tables, shopping bags at their feet, you might be drawn in for a second, overlooking the uniform signage, the uniformed guards, the too feeble stream of traffic in the well-controlled quasi-public street, and the way everything conspires to keep the experience free of distracting surprise. You can even live there. Above the main street and ringing the plaza are flats and town houses, accessible through their own garages and concealing their own swimming pools but opening out to the little shopping city with cute Juliet balconies. “Call it energy, call it charisma, call it style & substance,” the marketing copy reads. “Santana Row has a certain something that is impervious to time.”

There’s really nothing wrong with Easton Town Center either. It’s actually sort of charming the way the planners of this mega-mall in Columbus, Ohio—again seeking that elusive saturated-market edge—have modeled the thing after an ideal American courthouse square. It’s a true Midwestern civic typology, missing only the civic, but there’s an Apple Store and a place for the kids to play outside; it’s not at all a bad place to kill a few hours between the airport and your next pilgrimage to the Wexner Center.

At Easton Town Center the mall-planning protocols are retained to a much greater degree than at Santana Row (there’s a proper interior, modeled incongruously after a Milanese arcade, and you’re glad for it when it sleets). But there is still that salutory urge to make a center, even to flatter the “consumer” by advertising it as such; and judging by the foot traffic around its signature square one winter weekday last year, it works. As at the more upscale Santana Row, the mall is surrounded by housing, though not in the complex. On the access roads all around, there are acres of low town-house blocks that reminded me of similar swaths near Harvard Square. You can live close to other people, and if you can’t quite abandon your car, it would be possible at least to leave your SUV in one of the shared garages when you scamper across the street to go to Johnny Rockets. You could even walk to a movie theater.

It was visiting those two sprawl-patching hot spots within a few months last year that began to erode my knee-jerk aversion to malls: fake places, captive minds, etc., etc., blah, blah, blah. I still feel like it’s the end of the world when I see a shopping center replace the exterior life of a city—the beautiful, well-scaled, well-heeled streets of Providence, Rhode Island, may never recover from the vampire of Providence Place—but in San Jose and exurban Ohio, there is scarcely a center to mourn, and the malliers should be credited for responding to a human urge that looks like it will easily survive the decentralizing effects of multiuser gaming and Netflix.

People like to gather, and not just to shop. For many years I liked to think that it was in search of those extracommercial urban moments that Americans went to Europe in such numbers: a stroll on cobbles, a chance crepe stand or busker, the feel of being in a mass. But there’s a predictable feel to those places these days that rivals the formula of the American mall. Think of the center of any European city: the train station lets out at one end of the pedestrian-only zone, chain stores are everywhere, the unified street furniture and signage announce an advanced state of central control. Parking is underground, out of sight. Events are known, programmed, and disturbances of the peace are few. Though you’re still free to riot after a soccer match.

In terms of land use, it’s preferable to paving the orchards or cornfields to make more sprawl (even in the form of little downtowns), but experientially the zentrum and the shopping center are fast converging. You scan the shop windows as you wander toward the city’s central point—a clock, a fountain, a bridge—just as you would gravitate toward the food court or art object at the center of some old-school mall. Walking around the center of Munich for several days last winter, I found it increasingly untenable to prefer one form of regulated commercial experience to another, to damn the American solution and reflexively embrace the European. The city fathers had even installed an ice rink at the gate of the main walking street, just as shrewd mall-makers from Edmonton to Dallas have done since the 1980s.

With free speech (thriving elsewhere) taken out of the equation, with all arguments based on “authenticity” banished to the postmodern echo chamber, with the European models of urbanity themselves sinking into the formulaic banal, places like Santana Row and Easton Town Center look like unadulterated good news—little training grounds for the experience of being with lots of other people on a street at the same time. That alone can build civic health. And subversion is only a wireless connection away.

Eco Boulevard

2007-03-29T14:12:00.000-07:00

Excerpt from Brand Avenue

Along a new main thoroughfare in the Madrid suburb of Vallecas, ingenious "air trees" made of recycled gasworks are growing.

Equal parts garden folly, architectural icon, town square, and adaptive reuse, the enclosures are the result of a competition won by Madrid design firm ecosistemaurbano:
Ecosistemaurbano were the winners, having come up with a dynamic and futuristic answer to the two goals specified by the competition regarding the main street of Vallecas: to generate social activity and adapt an open space from the bioclimatic point of view. The architects resorted to urgent action with the aim of creating a sort of linear wood at the centre of the boulevard – a green belt of compact vegetation to be grown in the next 15 to 20 years. In the middle of a young tree plantation along the boulevard, they placed three mock gasworks. These constructions will act as focal points for the social life of the new urban settlement, which to date has no public meeting places. At the base of the three so-called “air trees”, each with a diameter of about 20 metres, a slight hollow will accommodate the normal activities of an urban park.
One has been built thus far. Two more are soon to follow.

Inside, each air tree is distinct: the first air tree has "columns of air" on the outside and climbing vines on the inside; the second will gradually be encased in vines on both exterior and interior surfaces; a third will feature vegetation on the exterior and a projection wall on the interior--a 360-degree theater for public use.

The air trees are also energy independent, offering solar-powered cooling in addition to shade:
The first air tree is the result of 16 hemicycles arranged in a circle, covered with a thermal fabric and supported by a lightweight, easily assembled frame, which is identical for the three large “dynamos”. In terms of energy these theatrical scaffoldings are self-sufficient, relying on a system of photovoltaic solar collection. An evaporation and transpiration plant has been devised for the air conditioning of these open spaces, which are situated in a zone that suffers from very high temperatures in summer. Water pumped into tanks at the top of the cylinders will be redistributed in the lower layers, where it will be vaporised. This will lower temperatures by eight to ten degrees in the small circular spaces, thus making them very pleasant places in which to relax.

Workforce Housing

2007-03-28T13:31:00.000-07:00

exerpts from Hernando Today, March 13, 2007, Michael D. Bates

Most people are familiar with affordable housing, which the federal government defines as housing that costs no more than 30 percent of a household's monthly income. Such housing also comes with state guidelines. But workforce housing is a relatively new animal whose description varies depending on who you talk to.

The federal Urban Land Institute (ULI) defines it as housing that is affordable to those between 60 and 120 percent of the area's median income. Many households in this group do not qualify for federal programs, yet do not have enough income for adequate housing, according to the ULI.

Nicholas Nicholson, president of Nicholson Engineering Associates, said his idea of workforce housing is a household that earns $45,000 annually or less, which includes teachers, firefighters, police officers and service-related workers. These people don't make the kind of money to afford $200,000-plus homes or homes on the scale of Glen Lakes or the proposed Hickory Hill.

But whatever they call them, county commissioners have made it clear they support developers' plans to build homes that meet more realistic budgetary constraints of the citizens. You need houses for all kinds of people on all kinds of income levels, County Commissioner Rose Rocco said.

Often, there is a death in the family, and the surviving spouse is forced to downsize because of income restraints, she said. Other candidates for these types of homes are older couples who don't want the hassles of yard maintenance or empty nesters who now find they don't need large, expensive homes, she said. These types of homes also provide a springboard for couples to move up in the future, she said. You want to be able to see your young couples, those who can't afford to go into a house at this point in time, and give them a nice place to live that is within their income range, she said. There isn't a whole lot out there like that now.

"Neighborly" Housing

2007-03-28T10:38:00.000-07:00

By Kelly Sheehan, Multi Housing News

Chicago residents who buy housing in low-income neighborhoods prefer homes that are designed to be part of their communities and not insolated from them, according to a new report by researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). The Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, a think-tank based in Cambridge, Mass., funded the year-long study.

"I'm interested in neighborhood revitalization and I study the way that the design of housing connects or doesn't connect to surrounding communities," Brent Ryan, UIC assistant professor of urban planning and policy, told MHN. "Since there is so much housing being constructed in Chicago right now, we asked the question, 'Does the design of new urban developments popping up around the city affect the value of housing?' As it turns out, it does."

Ryan and Rachel Weber, a fellow UIC associate professor of urban planning and policy, analyzed assessed values of housing built between 1993 and 2003 in parts of Bronzeville, Bucktown, East Garfield Park, Lawndales, Ukrainian Village and Wicker Park. Every census tract in the analysis had a poverty rate of at least 20 percent in 1990, according to federal standards.

Buyers are willing to pay 33 to 50 percent more for units in small multifamily buildings or single-family homes with entrances that face the street and parking that faces the rear, according to the report. Buyers also favor relatively short setbacks from the street and designs similar to those used for neighboring buildings.

"The value differential implies that buyers of these homes recognize the connections of this housing to the neighborhoods, whether those connections are physical, social or economic," Ryan said. "This might be expected in higher-income neighborhoods, but it’s more surprising in low-income neighborhoods, given that the literature portrays an overriding concern for personal and property security."

Ryan and Weber defined three basic housing design models common to many U.S. cities. They are:

Infill , or housing built on scattered individual lots by multiple developers, which is visually in keeping with surrounding housing. Infill is common in older neighborhoods where houses were demolished one at a time due to deterioration and arson, such as Bronzeville, East Garfield Park, Humboldt Park and North Kenwood.

Traditional neighborhood development, or large planned communities that maintain the neighborhood’s street grid, which face the street and are relatively close to it. They do not have rear parking. An example is North Town Village on the Near North Side.

Enclave or self-contained complexes on large sites, often behind a gate or wall, which are consciously separated from their surroundings.

Many enclaves and traditional neighborhood developments are built on former industrial or institutional sites. Homan Square in Lawndale and Picardy Place in North Center are enclaves. Ryan and Weber determined that infill housing had the highest assessed values. Units in traditional neighborhood developments were assessed only slightly higher than those in enclaves. Values were lowest in enclave or traditional developments with private roadways and entrances facing private spaces. Ryan and Weber suggested that some buyers might associate the size, homogeneity and isolation of these buildings with suburban housing or 20th-century public housing. The study indicated that buyers can be swayed toward enclave or traditional developments by convenient parking in front of or attached to their homes, as well as landscaping that forms a buffer between units and streets.

Ryan told MHN that he lives in a high-rise building in Chicago because he is interested in being a part of the surrounding community. "Our study finds that other people value housing that is integrated into the community as well," he said. "People aren't moving to Chicago to live in a development that could be found in the suburbs--they're moving here to be involved in all that the city has to offer. We were surprised to find that this translated into economic value."

Weber said that the research team found that the cost per unit might be higher to build infill housing, but the cost to build enclaves also can be pushed higher because of the need for private roadways and landscaping. "

The study should be reassuring to urbanists who believe that the best way to revitalize urban neighborhoods is to respect and augment existing places rather than attempt to transform them into another type of neighborhood entirely," Ryan said.

Ryan is currently working to secure funding for a new study that will examine the spillover effects of the design of 800 to 1,200 new urban developments. "We want to look into how the design of these new urban developments affect the housing around them," he said.

5 Sustainable Reuse Principles

2007-03-27T14:06:00.000-07:00

by Alan Mallach, Research Director, National Housing Institute

REUSE PRINCIPLE 1: The ultimate goal of all reuse strategies is the reuse of vacant properties in ways that are appropriate and sustainable

Appropriate for the site and area, taking into account redevelopment plans and long term strategies for the area. It means not only that the land use is appropriate, but that the development or building is designed and sited so that it improves the area or reinforces its positive features, such as architectural or historic character
Sustainable in that it enhances the long-term social, economic and physical vitality of the community, be it a block, a neighborhood, or the city as a whole.

REUSE PRINCIPLE 2: Sound reuse strategies must be based on an understanding of the market, and must be responsive to the market

Understand how the market works in the community and region
Identify market strengths and weaknesses in your neighborhood and city – strengths can be:
· A major institution, such as a university or medical center
· A historic district, or an area with attractive and undervalued houses
· A major park, or water body
· An ethnic neighborhood, or a cluster of stores and restaurants
· Proximity to downtown, or to a public transit hub
Identify target markets and opportunities :
· People who live elsewhere in the region
· People who are moving into the region from outside the area
· People who live in the community – never underestimate the importance of the people who are already in the community to drive future revitalization
Develop strategies based on target markets and market opportunities
Design incentives to stimulate – not replace – the market
The most effective incentives are those that leverage private investment by filling the market gap between the cost of creating the opportunity and its resulting market value.

REUSE PRINCIPLE 3: Sound reuse strategies should be grounded in a vision of the community’s future, and based on well-grounded plans designed to make that future happen.

Create a vision for the future of the city and each neighborhood
Take planning seriously
A plan is more than pretty pictures – design the plan to serve as a guide for implementation and action
Engage everyone in the planning process, particularly the residents of the area to be redeveloped – not as a pro forma matter, but meaningfully
Follow the plan – not slavishly, but seriously – treat it as the road map to the future.
Evaluate the plan regularly – if it’s working, keep going – if not, change it.

REUSE PRINCIPLE 4: Sites should be reused in ways that make the not just the property, but the entire community a better place

Reuse decisions must be based on sound community design principles
Respect the past – new development of vacant sites should fit harmoniously with the existing fabric of a community
Develop and enforce design standards to ensure that new development is compatible and consistent
Recognize the strengths of urban neighborhoods, and reinforce them through reuse of vacant properties
Create green neighborhoods – use vacant properties to create open spaces

REUSE PRINCIPLE 5: Within the city and neighborhood framework, specific decisions about reuse of specific sites should be rational ones, based on specific reuse criteria:

Is the proposed reuse consistent with the long term vision and with the plans that have been adopted to further that vision?
Does the proposed reuse further specific citywide policy goals, such as creating jobs or increasing the homeownership rate?
Does the proposed reuse respond to preferences and desires of the residents of the community, such as a need for more affordable – or for move-up – housing, or better neighborhood-scale shopping?
Does the proposed reuse reflect present or anticipated future market demand?
Is the proposed reuse responsible, in terms of present and future public sector cost and the availability of resources?

Considerations for Live-Work Space

2007-03-27T08:48:00.000-07:00

by Zimmerman Volk

“Live-work” is a unit or building type that has been designed to accommodate non-residential
uses in addition to, or combined with living quarters. Live-work units are commonly
proposed in new traditional neighborhoods or new town centers, particularly as a transition
from residential to commercial areas or as a means of introducing small-scale retail.
The growing number of home-based businesses in the United States (reported in 1997 as four
million) is often cited as a justification for live-work. However, there is an important
distinction between a “home-based business” and a “business-based home.” Most home-based
businesses can be accommodated in almost any kind of dwelling unit. In contrast, the
business-based home is a true live-work unit: a dwelling unit with a configuration that is
influenced or even dictated by the non-residential activities.
Four live-work development considerations:

1. Flexibility
Live-work units should be flexible in order to respond to economic, social and technological
changes over time. The unit configuration must also be flexible in order to comply with the
requirements of the Fair Housing Amendments Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act.

2. Non-restrictive zoning
Compatible uses (retail, office, residential) should be permitted on blocks in and surrounding
the neighborhood center, regardless of unit configuration.

3. Tenure
Rental live-work units are absorbed faster than for-sale. The financial commitment of a lease
is small and of relatively short duration compared with a mortgage. A for-sale live-work unit
represents an opportunity for the small investor: a resident investor can lease the flex space for
residential, retail or office use; a non-resident investor can lease both the main residential space
and the flex space.

4. Timing
Live-work is not exempt from normal commercial real estate dynamics. In new
neighborhoods, live-work should be one of the later building types to be introduced, not the
first. It is easier to capture the full value and appeal of live-work units in locations where the
benefits of traditional neighborhoods are readily apparent.

Sydney's Greenest Building

2007-03-26T11:35:00.000-07:00

by Jorge

30 Bond
What’s more impressive than a building design that aims to reduce its greenhouse emissions to a 5 Star Australian Building Greenhouse Rating benchmark, which is the approximate equivalent to that of a Gold LEED greenhouse certification level? How about one which has proven to meet its target and improves on it. This is the case of the building known as 30 The Bond located at Hickson Road in Sydney.

When Lend Lease, its builder and current owner decided to create its new headquarters in Sydney it decided to hold numerous employee workshops to determine what they believed were the important priorities. Those priorities were reduction in pollutants, increase in environment quality, water management (as Australia has now been in what seems a permanent drought), waste management and a green area for them to enjoy. All of this resulted in an extremely well designed commercial building.

Built over the old contaminated gasworks site, which had to be restored, 30 The Bond was the first building in Australia to achieve the rating of 5 stars ABGR, with a certified emission that resulted in over a 20% reduction over the already stringent targets set by its initial 5 star design commitment, as well as receiving a 5 star Green Star - office as built rating from the Australian Green Building Council . It achieved this rating by using chilled beams (a first in Australia), wintergarden rooms and automatically controlled external shades to keep the heat out as well as providing external views to 60% of its occupants. It also contains low VOC carpets and paints, a roof garden with native plants and timber decking from sustainable sources. Water saving fittings as well as a sub-metering system to allow for any leak detection sealed the deal.

And while all of that is important, what we like here at Inhabitat is when we can achieve all this with style, and this building does it in droves. When entering the building you cannot help to notice the exposed four-storey sandstone wall that serves as one wall of the atrium. Aside from being a reminder of the site’s history, as it was originally cut by convicts early in Sydney’s history, it also serves as insulation as well as providing natural cooling to the atrium.
The 9 storey building was designed by PTW Architects (who we recentally raved about for their “Bubble Building”) in conjunction with WHO interior architecture and Bovis Lend Lease.

Award Winning Sustainable Design

2007-03-26T11:27:00.000-07:00

by Evelyn

Collaborative Designworks in Houston, Texas proves that sustainable design practices can lead to award-winning architecture. Their 505 Housing was recently one of the 19 recipients of the American Institute of Architect’s (AIA) 2007 Housing Awards, winning 1st prize in the One-and Two-Family Production Homes category. Now in its seventh year, the award recognizes the best of the best in housing design while promoting the importance of housing as “a necessity of life, a sanctuary for the human spirit, and a valuable national resource.”

The 505 incorporates 4 units on a site eligible to hold 5, allowing space for yards and optimum utilization of daylight due to the reduction of shared walls. Each window was placed to maximize views, let in a considerable amount of daylight, maintain each unit’s individual privacy, and provide natural cross-ventilation. Other sustainable ideas deployed in the design of The 505 include permeable ground coverings, stack-vented rain-screens on the east and west facades, radiant barrier roofing, recycled/sustainable materials and finishes, tank-less water heaters, and high-efficiency appliances and equipment.

Bodega-Innovative Retail

2007-03-26T10:38:00.000-07:00

If you’re starting a new independent clothing store in Boston’s typically fashion-challenged environs, you’d probably take out an ad to promote your grand opening and give away cheap-but-seemingly-generous swag to the first days’ customers. But if you’re opening a high-end-streetwear boutique meant to become a global destination and you have a clue about the Internet-hyped urban market, you’d instead keep your store on the down low, build the environment into something that’s more like a living-art installation than like a straight-product shill, and wait for the customers to come to you.

Bodega’s retail concept is a stroke of genius: one of the birthplaces of hip-hop/graffiti/sneaker/urban culture is the corner store. Even one of Adidas’s most recent marketing stunts for its relaunched early-’80s product line Adicolor was to randomly display seven individual shoe samples in various New York corner stores. So while there are a couple of “magical” secrets about the place that its inventive owners are still trying to keep hush-hush, Bodega is not only designed to convert into an art gallery, but there’s also an awesome fully functional bodega on site, replete with grape sodas, candy necklaces, and ceiling tiles that have had coffee poured on them to mimic water stains. Owner Mak says with a smirk, “We wanted to get flytraps that already had flies in it and mice traps that had mice in it.”

In truth, Bodega is innovative not only for Boston, but for retail. “Will Bostonians really get it? That’s not really our aim,” says Mak. “This is a global market. But we’d like to put a flag in the sand and be like, there’s really good stuff coming out of Boston. SoHo isn’t the only scene on earth.”

"Place-making" Arizona Style

2007-03-23T09:35:00.000-07:00

Tempe officials hope to make downtown a "place" - a vibrant hub of pedestrian activity engulfing Papago Park, the Mill Avenue District and Tempe Town Lake.

To do that, Tempe needs a seamless connection of pedestrian-friendly roads and walkways throughout the region. It needs to cluster landmarks, destinations and icons close together, then build attractive passageways between them, Phil Myrick, vice president of Project for Public Spaces, said at a meeting Monday.

"When you push them together, it makes more energy," Myrick said. "There should be so many things to do that everybody in the community has the opportunity to go there and spend hours."
Tempe hired the New York-based nonprofit consulting organization to help bring people to downtown Tempe landmarks.

Through town hall meetings and volunteer data collectors, including more than 100 ASU students, the consultants are identifying the key destinations that can become "places."
Myrick calls his project "placemaking" - turning a neighborhood, city or destination from somewhere people can't wait to get out of to somewhere they never want to leave."
[Tempe has] all the elements, but they're not organized in a way that makes sense," Myrick told a joint meeting that included the Tempe City Council and the boards of directors from the Tempe Chamber of Commerce, Tempe Convention and Visitors Bureau, and the Downtown Tempe Community.

He then presented a preliminary plan to link Tempe's landmarks and destinations in a way that would entice pedestrians to stop and spend time instead of passing through.
"We can't leave it to the private sector to come up with a vision for this lake," Myrick said. "It's just not going to happen."

City staff, volunteers and ASU planning students combed Mill Avenue and other locations, asking questions and gathering data to pinpoint the most popular destinations, their strengths and their shortcomings, said Eric Hansen, a Tempe planner who has been working on the project

Role of arts in urban revitalization

2007-03-22T08:12:00.000-07:00

Below is an excerpt of a talk given at The Peabody Institute Forum. Speakers included Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Dr. William Brody, President of Johns Hopkins University,Adam Gordon, Editor-in-chief of The Next American City.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg:
We’re here to consider the role of arts in urban revitalization. Probably can’t have a better example of that than the Peabody campus. It’s right in the middle of Baltimore. It’s not quite as famous as Camden Yards, but it is getting there.

Arts and arts organizations seriously are a vital component of a city’s cultural life, particularly for the diverse communities that live there. They are also magnets for people that come from outside: tourists, of course, but also talented and ambitious dreamers.

Art defines our lives. Art pumps us up and makes us complete and gives us something to put a smile on our faces about, as well as gets the brain cells to keep going. When you talk about the pulse of the city, in many ways you really are talking about the artists that live there and the artists that work there. Art is one of the ways in which ethnic communities express themselves. Not everybody has had the kind of education that lets them write well. There are people who just instinctively have the ability to communicate in other ways. I think that great cities recognize this.

Art is about economics as well. I don’t think there’s any question why New York City’s tourism is the way it is. I was with a very well known clothes designer last night at dinner, and he had a friend coming to town who said, “Can you get me a hotel room?” He said both he and his secretary dialed for an hour before they finally found one room. New York City is full, and the reason the hotels are full, the reason the tourists come there, is because they want to see the museums, the performing arts centers–the tiny museums and not just the big ones. Art brings in millions and millions of dollars to any city. It transforms whole neighborhoods.

One of the great challenges we have is to bring artists into communities that are down on their heels and have the artists transform the communities–and that works–but as Mayor O’Malley knows, the great challenge is how do you keep it so the artists are able to live there as these neighborhoods become magnets and more and more people want to move in and drive the starving artists out. There’s no easy answer to that. What is clear is that culture changes neighborhoods, and that all of these things take money to do. There’s no question the arts have to be supported. They have to be supported by private philanthropy as well as public philanthropy. Public philanthropy is great, but it’s private philanthropy that really lets people be totally creative. If we didn’t have private philanthropy we’d be back in the old masters days. We certainly never would have had something as blasphemous as impressionism. Medicine–the same thing is true: you would never try anything new because the public’s money can’t do that.

I think the stakes are very high. If you falter in your community or in your city and you walk away from the arts, it can be generations before you can turn that around. Once it becomes unfashionable to go someplace it stays unfashionable for a long time. It is also a very competitive world. Mayor O’Malley has got to get people to move here; Mayor Bloomberg’s got to get people to move to New York. People have choices today that they never had before.

Low-Rise High Density Housing

2007-03-21T13:52:00.000-07:00

Borneo Sporenburg is one of the most celebrated contemporary examples of dense urban housing within a Western European context. It caters both to the aspirations of middle-class urban dwellers and to a social agenda for regeneration and community renewal.

Borneo Sporenburg was a dock area on the outskirts of Amsterdam serving trade with Holland’s colonies in the East. As part of the phased regeneration of these now disused areas, a residential brief of 2500 dwellings was set for this zone, dictating a high density of housing, despite the predominant market demand for a suburban self-contained house. The development demonstrates that family housing is not incompatible with dense urban areas. It reverses the predominant social trend towards a dense urban core inhabited by childless couples, singles and the extremes of high and low income, and a suburban fringe occupied by middle-class families.

Concept and method
West 8’s masterplan was based on a new approach towards the familiar demands of single-family houses – generous private outdoor space, a secure parking space, safety and individuality. Usually associated with a suburban and low-density form, West 8 created a framework for high-density living that nevertheless satisfied all the demands of a conventional household. It proposed a typology that was also reassuringly reminiscent of historical models in street layout and proportion. West 8’s masterplan set strict yet imaginative rules for the development including guidelines for streetscape, parking, private open space, storey height and plot width. West 8 also directly designed several landscape features, such as the three steel footbridges.

Volkshaus

2007-03-21T13:14:00.000-07:00

Devised by a design group called Landship, (see also Be-haus, A-Kit, and Oji-Group) the Volkshaus concept was intended as a means to realize the simple practicality embodied by the Volkswagen Beetle in a DIY home building system. Bearing some characteristics of a plug-in architecture platform, it uses a system which combines 4x9.5" (105x240mm) wood beams and 4x4" posts connected with a concealed modular steel joint and modular floor, roof, and prefabricated insulated wall panels which nail into place on the post and beam frame. The system integrates both Japanese and western styles of design with modern materials and new eco-sensible systems for energy and climate control, such as a roof trombe wall style heat collector, a roof-peak passive ventilator system, and integrated photovoltaic panels. It has so far been used for about 2000 homes in Japan and is offered in a variety of kits from a community of companies specializing in making products for it. Unfortunately, the exchange rates and the fact that almost all building lumber in Japan is imported makes the cost of importing these kits to the US unattainable.

Crime Prevention Through Design

2007-03-21T11:32:00.000-07:00

By Diane Zahm

Our urban neighborhoods are suffering from years of suburban development, which has destroyed their physical, economic and social fabric, and left it torn and frayed. In some neighborhoods this process has created an urban wasteland of vacant lots, buildings, streets and sidewalks that have become havens for crime. It is these vacancies—or voids—that are now the most problematic. Abandoned buildings serve as residences for drug users and prostitutes. Vacant lots full of trash and weeds attract homeless persons or become the local hangout for gang members. Vacated or unused alleys function as a street network for drug dealers.

In many ways, land-use policies exacerbate the problem. Long ago, in an effort to promote economic development, downtown neighborhoods were rezoned for commercial or industrial uses, eliminating any opportunity for ongoing investment in residential or mixed-use development. Instead, property ownership became highly speculative. Nonresident investors accumulated parcels for profit, all the while renting to tenants who themselves lacked any emotional investment in the neighborhood. Real property tax revenues dried up; so did neighborhood support services. Grocery stores, pharmacies, department stores, banks, doctors and dentists—all moved to the suburbs. But this was not just a loss of residents or taxes or services; the process destroyed the dynamic mix of uses and activities that made urban neighborhoods vibrant and contributed to community safety and security.

Studies show that crime occurs most frequently in those places without observers or guardians; in other words, in the voids. Many years ago Jane Jacobs, in her book, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, offered observations regarding those elements that contribute to a safe and healthy urban neighborhood. Among them are a mix of uses, clearly defined public and private spaces, 24-hour activity, eyes on the street, adequate lighting, uniform setbacks, architectural variety and short blocks. Many planners and designers took Jacobs' insights as a wake-up call, but were undeterred by her disdain for the "doctrine of salvation by bricks." Their new plans called for mixed uses, uniform setbacks and other important physical elements without considering the extent to which residents, property owners, business managers, visitors and others must be engaged in order for a neighborhood to be truly safe. For what good is a mix of uses if the activity they generate never attracts people who care about the neighborhood around them, who pick up litter and scrub off graffiti and report drug dealing? Without them the neighborhood is also without the observers or guardians who are so critical to safety and security, a need that cannot be filled by police or private security.

Traditional neighborhood development represents an important step toward safer, more secure urban neighborhoods. It begins by mending the physical and economic fabric of the neighborhood, by filling the voids left by vacant lots, buildings and alleyways. Open spaces, then, are no longer merely voids, but carefully located and designed streets, walks, yards and parks that knit together the uses and activities that surround them. Traditional neighborhood development has the potential to re-establish the social network of the neighborhood as well. Of course, traditional neighborhood development cannot guarantee "community," but it can provide a dynamic and attractive mix of uses, with lot sizes, building scales and floor plans that reflect contemporary lifestyles. If traditional neighborhood development is successful, no space or place in the neighborhood will be without a guardian or owner, someone who participates in its management and upkeep—and who, therefore, helps to prevent crime.

Net Zero Energy Building

2007-03-21T09:51:00.000-07:00

by Jetson Green

I just thought I would blog about this real quick because it caught my attention in the latest edition of BusinessWeek. There was a full page ad saying, "Imagine that. You can do well in the world without hurting it." Pictured in the ad is a pretty neat looking building (above), which is interactive at www.utc.com/curious. Go give it a look...United Technologies' (NYSE: UTX) green building page has information on electrochromic glazing, 100% recycled structural steel, vertical axis wind power turbines, photovoltaic solar power arrays, zero VOC paints, green roofs with an integrated reclamation systems, conserving energy, fuel cell power plants, and combined cooling, heating and power (CCHP) systems. Maybe someone should actually build the structure that's in this rendering.

Mixed-Use Neighborhoods Decrease Risk of Obesity

2007-03-21T09:39:00.000-07:00

Confirming last year's study by University of Maryland's National Center for Smart Growth researcher Reid Ewing, who found higher obesity rates in counties with sprawling rather than compact development, a new Georgia Institute of Technology in-depth study of links between weight and the built environment in metro Atlanta, led by University of British Columbia Associate Professor Lawrence D. Frank, shows the relative risk of obesity increases 35 percent from the most to the least mixed-use areas.

A Trainspotter's Paradise

2007-03-20T11:18:00.000-07:00

Birmingham Railroad Reservation Park
Forum for Urban Design

Some cities have a river; others have a harbor. In Birmingham Alabama, residents cozy up to an 11-track railroad corridor. Still very active, the railroad serves as a vital emblem of local history and character but also, by running through the heart of downtown, splits the city in half. To help stitch the downtown back together, Tom Leader Studio’s masterplan re-envisions the area as a park that puts Birmingham’s train infrastructure in the spotlight.

Tom Leader’s design concept for the park was apparent from the get-go. As principal of Tom Leader Studio, he explained that “rather than sticking a park next to a rail viaduct and calling it a day, the idea was to put primary park circulation up at the level of the train because they love trains. [Birmingham residents] actually go on weekends and trainspot on some of these overpasses.” Using this quirky hobby as a cue, the firm aimed to provide greater access to the trains by designing a catwalk structure that runs parallel to the rail corridor. The park, which will cover a total of 21 acres, is organized into different zones with themes of rail, community, and nature. Besides the rail catwalk, the plan features a community-oriented segment at the eastern end that includes an amphitheater with a whimsical rain curtain, an arts plaza and a stage platform for regional events such as Birmingham’s celebrated “Crawfish Boil.” The middle and western edge fulfill the “nature” piece of the vision through a zone of open space with several knolls that Leader describe as waves that “rise up and down against the railroad track.” Though filled with intimate and unique details such as the wave-like hills and the rain curtain, the park’s strongest asset still remains its dynamic rail-oriented circulation.

For the Railroad Reservation Park, Tom Leader Studio collaborated with ConsultEcon, and Tom Martin economic planners for the client, the City of Birmingham Mayor’s Office. Currently, the plan is being further developed through schematic designs, and construction is projected to begin later in 2007.

The "Sameness of Communities"

2007-03-20T07:01:00.000-07:00

Change is the new permanence, and as Adam Gopnik pointed out so elegantly in a recent New Yorker column, this yields a weird sameness everywhere. Manhattan is but one example of this phenomenon:

...New York is safer and richer but less like itself, an old lover who has gone for a face-lift and come out looking like no one in particular. The wrinkles are gone, but so is the face. This transformation is one you see on every street corner in Manhattan, and now in Brooklyn, too, where another local toy store or smoked-fish emporium disappears and another bank branch or mall store opens. For the first time in Manhattan’s history, it has no bohemian frontier. Another bookstore closes, another theatre becomes a condo, another soulful place becomes a sealed residence. These are small things, but they are the small things that the city’s soul clings to.
By a city we don’t mean, or just mean, a place where many people live; we mean a place where many kinds of people live, all more or less on top of each other. Though Mrs. Astor knew nothing of the Lower East Side, and the Lower East Side could only dream of Mrs. Astor, they were still nodes on one grid. In the course of any even semiconscious wandering through the city—much less the kind of conscious wondering that marks the city’s poetry and literature from Walt Whitman to Alfred Kazin and beyond—each group bumped visually and tangibly into the other. Only twenty-five years ago, a walk from Tribeca to SoHo and the Lower East Side would show as many kinds and classes—rich, aspiring, immigrant—as it had a century before; now that walk is likely to show only the same six stores and the same two banks and the same one shopper.

(Left: typical Lower East Side street scene, around 1900.)

The demise of insular enclaves of all sorts is not necessarily bad, if only what replaces these things is the ideal multicolor, socioeconomically diverse metropolis that most people dream about owning together. (Which no one believes the gentrified city is, except perhaps for the people who can easily afford it.) So how that distinctiveness is maintained, preserved, or encouraged across the "one grid" of the city is thrown into extremely sharp relief.

Sustainable Building Checklist

2007-03-19T13:51:00.000-07:00

workinproperty.com 06 March 2007

A checklist has been prepared by Checklist South East to help all parties in the development process consider the true impact of any project.

The checklist is intended for the use of developers to ensure that they have tackled the critical issues in their proposal. Similarly it is adopted by planners when considering an application.
The Checklist takes into account industry standards such as BREEAM, Ecohomes, Urban Design Compendium, National Standards Framework.

The Checklist is divided into sub sections, as taken from their website:

Climate Change and Energy To ensure that new developments are appropriately adapted to the impacts of present and future climate change and to minimise their own impact on greenhouse gases, flooding, heat gain, water resources and water quality.
Community
To ensure that the development supports a vibrant, diverse and inclusive community which integrates with surrounding communities.
Place Making To ensure that the most sustainable sites are used for development and that the design process, layout structure and form provide a development that is appropriate to the local context and supports a sustainable community.
Transport and Movement To ensure people can reach facilities they need by appropriate transport modes, encouraging walking and public transport use and reducing the use of private cars for shorter journeys.
Ecology To ensure that the ecological value of the site is conserved and enhanced maintaining biodiversity and protecting existing natural habitats which can contribute to and enhance the amenity of the area.
Resources To promote the sustainable use of resources, including the reduction and re-use of wastes, related to both the construction and operation of new developments.
Business To ensure that the development contributes to the sustainable economic vitality of the local area and region.
Buildings To ensure that the design of individual buildings does not undermine the sustainability of the overall development.
Checklist South East allows the various parties to answer the numerous questions on-line, providing policy guidance as well as the relative importance of each question.

An important tool in an ever changing (planning) climate..

"Complete" Streets

2007-03-19T13:36:00.000-07:00

Courier-Journal 3/8/2007

''For decades, we in Louisville -- and cities around the nation -- have built roads only for vehicles,'' said Metro Mayor Jerry Abramson in endorsement of its proposed ''Complete Streets'' design guidelines, which also focus on sidewalks, bike lanes and curbs easy for wheelchairs and baby-strollers, confident the new policy will rectify that old ''urban planning mistake.''

Promoted by the Washington-based National Complete Streets Coalition and the Prescott, Arizona-based Thunderhead Alliance of bicycle and pedestrian advocacy organizations, the Complete Street guidelines are in force in 22 cities so far.

For Louisville Metro, writes Louisville Courier-Journal reporter Marcus Green, they were drafted and explained in a 163-page manual by a broad-based area committee, which included neighborhood activists, transit champions and advocates for the disabled.

They agreed that all new streets should have dedicated lanes or paths for cyclists, along with pedestrian-oriented and wheelchair-friendly sidewalks -- requirements also applicable to street realignment and improvement wherever possible.

''You have to think about that at the time of construction,'' said Louisville Metro Planning & Design Director Charles Cash, to make local residents aware that they will have ''alternative means of getting where they want to go.''

Set as a key goal at the city's bicycle summit two year ago, the reporter notes, the anticipated Complete Streets policy has already prompted officials to earmark $1 million in federal money for planning work on a seven-mile bikeway on River Road, the future top cycling corridor along the Ohio River.

''Bike paths and bike lanes are good,'' observed local cycling advocate David Morse, who lived for several years in the bike-friendly Los Angeles and San Francisco bay areas, ''because they inform drivers that, yes, bicyclists are legitimate transportation users just like car drivers.''

Smart Codes For Smart Places

2007-03-19T12:59:00.000-07:00

by Jason Miller

Mention zoning codes to the average person and the reaction is predictable: a stone-faced stare, glazed eyes, a yawn. But communities across the United States are discovering that the very fabric of their neighborhoods and towns is built on those codes—or, more accurately, because of them. And communities are doing something about these codes.

Conventional zoning codes are fundamentally flawed, says Geoffrey Ferrell, a principal with Geoffrey Ferrell Associates in Washington, D.C. “Ever since the industrial years, the conventional separation-of-uses approach has been the wrong approach to control”—to keeping unpleasant uses away from the residential areas. “It has devolved to micromanagement of use and density. The [built environment] that has resulted is very, very poor about 99 percent of the time. No one’s happy with what they’ve been given.”

Ferrell’s co-principal, Mary Madden, agrees. “That micromanagement of uses has resulted in a huge number of unintended consequences, namely, suburban sprawl. Everybody hates sprawl, but the builders aren’t violating rules; they’re building exactly what the codes call for. Those codes are a blueprint for sprawl. Under the existing conventional codes, you can’t help but build it.”

Community frustration with conventional codes and the type of development they spawn has driven new urbanist- and smart growth–minded planners to create new zoning codes. While these new codes go by many names— form-based codes, new urbanist codes, TND (traditional neighborhood development) ordinances, smart zoning, the SmartCode© from Miami-based town planners Duany Plater-Zyberk & Company—they are all designed to create places that emulate the urbanism of older, well-loved places, while preserving rural areas and historic sites threatened by conventional development.

Communities that have replaced their conventional codes with new ordinances have generally reported success in the process leading up to the new codes’ implementation, as well as favorable upturns in their real estate markets.

Live Theater & Shopping

2007-03-15T13:15:00.000-07:00

excerpt from Shopping Centers Today

Federal Realty Investment Trust’s Village at Shirlington, in Arlington, Va., gained a dramatic anchor last month — literally. The locally based Signature Theatre production company moved from its space in an industrial garage to a 48,000-square-foot playhouse at the center. The Village is an outdoor, Main Street-style shopping center last renovated in 1989 and made up largely of restaurants and cafés. Tenants include Capital City Brewing Company, Caribou Coffee and Johnny Rockets. Shoppers can have dinner and then see a show, and Sam Sweet, managing director of Signature, says this has worked out very well. “We’ve promoted it as a total entertainment experience,” he said. “Instead of having to find parking and run across the street, people can park in the free garage, walk into Shirlington, perhaps have dinner and see a show.”

The playhouse is in a four-floor complex, with the first floor occupied by the Arlington County Library. The mostly musical repertoire includes Stephen Sondheim’s Into the Woods, which has been a big success, according to Sweet. Walls of glass in the lobby allow patrons to sit at the bar and look out onto the shopping crowd. With the mixture of retail and theater entertainment, Sweet says, traffic has increased, with more visitors walking in for ticket purchases.

SOCIALIZATION OF RETAIL SPACE

2007-03-15T10:16:00.000-07:00

by David B. Polinchock, Brand Experience Lab

The impact of socialization of the retail space and the impact of online shopping on retail is growing daily. With the growing impact of Internet shopping, it's critical that the physical retail space adapts to this trend. What is the value of real estate for retailers today? Does a record store really need to exist as it's been for the past 40-plus years? What about banks, grocery stores, fashion retailers? If, thanks to the Internet, people are much more comfortable getting their purchases sent to them, rather then getting them right away, do we need that much space dedicated to merchandise? If we could do away with the inventory portion of most retail spaces today, what else would you do with the space? How could you make it a much more social environment, rather then being a retail environment? After all, this is exactly why places like Starbuck's or the Apple stores have boomed: they created a social space, rather than a retail space.

While people look at Starbuck's or the Apple stores and say "Yea, that's great for them, but it doesn't apply to me," I think that they're missing a huge opportunity. We think there's a coming trend to socialize the retail environment instead of just merchandising the real estate space. One such retailer plans to open this fall, Epicenter, where not only will you be able to see samples, but purchase using a "Buypod" and have everything shipped to you. They won't carry a deep inventory and may even charge you extra if you want to buy the item in the store. It will be very interesting to see how this concept works.

Socially Responsible Retail

2007-03-15T08:44:00.000-07:00

By Amanda Gore of fashion.psfk.com

Rough Sleepers is a clever new twist on the traditional idea of a charity shop. Working with the same business model, all the proceeds go directly to the social exclusion and homelessness charity Novas, but this is no second-hand store. The rather inconspicuous facade on the main road through Camden Town hides an impressively designed space with a feast of fashion treats inside, and wonderfully friendly assistants who were very happy to guide me around the store and introduce me to the fabulous collections.
The store itself is sensitively designed by Sonoko Obuchi to emulate a shopping trolley, an object that is both the primary choice for many homeless people to transport their possessions, and a striking symbol of our consumer-led culture. A mixture of white walls, metal frame and mirrors, the space puts you inside the shopping trolley and makes you reflect on these themes.

The clothing and accessories on offer come from a range of designers from all over the world, an important point for the charity who are keen to stress this global synergy for their cause. Some designers including Robert Carey Williams, Zest by Ikuko Kato, Not Morris (Kim Jones’ team), and Ramon Barreto have created ranges exclusively for Rough Sleepers, whilst the store also sells a well-chosen range of young designers including Dexter Wong, NOM*d, Sylvia Rielle and Vinti Andrews. Currently also stocking recent LCF graduate Georgie Ichikawa, they are keen to involve graduates too, and to offer help to designers through their studio facilities located at the back of the store.
Yet another clever facet of the store is Rough Sleepers fully functioning studio/ workshop which will soon be home to the store’s four resident designers (including Georgie) who each have bartered deals enabling them to use the space for free.

Having only opened a couple of weeks ago, the store is sure to become a fashion destination for those in NW London, not only due to its unique pieces at great prices (ranging from £30 to £500), but also thanks to the guilt-free shopping it offers. Unlike the marketing ploy of Bono’s project (RED), this scheme has roots within its own community and Novas are making sure that 100% of profits are reinvested in helping the homeless in Camden and across the country. What could be more virtuous than shopping here?!

TOD...Why Now?

2007-03-14T12:14:00.000-07:00

From Reconnecting America

Housing Preferences Are Changing:

Demand is changing dramatically because of profound demographic shifts, including the aging of baby boomers, the number of new immigrants, and the fact that younger adults prefer urban, mixed-use environments. While two-thirds of demand is still for large single-family dwellings, a third is for smaller housing choices, including apartments, townhomes, live-work spaces, and bungalows. The market isn’t meeting this demand, and the increasing competition for units in denser, mixed-use neighborhoods has caused a cycle of price increases, displacement and gentrification. There is an urgent need to increase this housing stock in order to meet market demand and protect and grow the affordable housing inventory.

Workers and Firms Prefer "24-Hour Neighborhoods":

In the past companies have preferred suburban campus environments near freeways, and regions have lured employers without regard to bigger picture development goals. But other issues are coming into play, including the rise of the "creative class," and the increasing importance of talent, technology and tolerance in a region’s economic development strategy. Because firms are chasing talent, which is choosing to locate in diverse, lively urban regions, firms now prefer these locations. A recent Jones Lang LaSalle survey found access to mass transit is very important to 70 percent of New Economy companies. And, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers' respected Emerging Trends publication, 24-Hour places are the best real estate investment locations.

Rail and Bus Systems Are In A Building Boom:

More regions are developing mass transit and more consumers are choosing mass transit over driving on congested roadways. Whereas public transit had existed primarily in older Northeastern cities, new systems have begun service in cities like Dallas, Denver, Salt Lake City, Sacramento, Charlotte, San Diego, Portland and San Jose. In fact, new rail or rapid bus systems are planned or under construction in all but three of the top 30 metropolitan areas.
At the convergence of these three trends is an opportunity to create the armature for a new growth and development strategy that meets the demand for location-efficient mixed-use places, supports regional economic growth strategies, and increases housing affordability — by increasing supply in neighborhoods with lower transportation costs. TOD occurs within a half mile radius of rail or rapid bus stations, encourages walking and cycling, has a mix of retail, commercial and residential uses, and a diversity of housing types suited to a mix of generations and incomes. It is the one strategy that promises to simultaneously meet these seemingly disparate goals.

Indeed, transit-oriented development has been touted as the palliative to traffic congestion and air quality problems, the high cost of housing, and Americans’ need for physical activity. But analysts have looked at projects on the ground nationwide and found few that deliver on this promise, and they’ve concluded TOD offers few advantages. In fact, the truth lies somewhere in between. Most so-called transit-oriented projects are simply conventional development located adjacent to transit, and cannot live up to the potential of truly effective transit-oriented development.

Municipalities Adopting TOD Policy

2007-03-13T08:03:00.000-07:00

By Amy Gardner and Bill Turque
Washington Post,March 13, 2007

Fairfax County embraced a new policy yesterday encouraging dense, pedestrian-friendly development near current and future transit stations, continuing the transformation of car-friendly suburban neighborhoods.

The policy, approved unanimously by the county Board of Supervisors, will promote "compact" development with a mix of housing, office space and retail stores within a half-mile of rail stations. The most intensive development would lie within a quarter-mile of stations. Fairfax is home to 10 transit stations, five for Metro and five for Virginia Railway Express.

The point, supervisors and the new policy say, is to create communities that encourage walking, biking and transit use to reduce sprawl and automobile travel.

Another purpose is to create a clear definition of so-called transit-oriented development -- a term that means different things to different people.

Last June, for example, the county approved MetroWest, a development of 2,250 homes as well as office and retail space at the Vienna Metro station, over the objections of residents who said the proposal lacked the mix of uses and neighborhood input needed for successful transit-oriented development. Previously, the county blocked a nearby neighborhood from selling to a developer who planned to build a high-rise project, on the grounds that the community was too far from the Metro station to qualify for the label.

TOD or Transit-Adjacent Development

2007-03-13T07:44:00.000-07:00

by Patrick Siegman, in Tumlin and Millard-Ball

What’s the difference between a true transit-oriented development, which will deliver
promised social and economic benefits, and a transit-adjacent development? A true TOD will include most of the following:

• The transit-oriented development lies within a five-minute walk of the transit stop, or about a quarter-mile from stop to edge. For major stations offering access to frequent high-speed service this catchment area may be extended to the measure of a 10-minute walk.

• A balanced mix of uses generates 24-hour ridership. There are places to work, to live, to learn, to relax and to shop for daily needs.

• A place-based zoning code generates buildings that shape and define memorable streets, squares, and plazas, while allowing uses to change easily over time.

• The average block perimeter is limited to no more than 1,350 feet. This generates a fine-grained network of streets, dispersing traffic and allowing for the creation of quiet and intimate thoroughfares.

• Minimum parking requirements are abolished.

• Maximum parking requirements are instituted: For every 1,000 workers, no more than 500 spaces and as few as 10 spaces are provided.

• Parking costs are “unbundled,” and full market rates are charged for all parking spaces. The exception may be validated parking for shoppers.

• Major stops provide BikeStations, offering free attended bicycle parking, repairs, and rentals. At minor stops, secure and fully enclosed bicycle parking is provided.

• Transit service is fast, frequent, reliable, and comfortable, with a headway of 15 minutes or less.

• Roadway space is allocated and traffic signals timed primarily for the convenience of walkers and cyclists.

• Automobile level-of-service standards are met through congestion pricing measures, or disregarded entirely.

• Traffic is calmed, with roads designed to limit speed to 30 mph on major streets and 20 mph on lesser streets.

Transit Oriented Development: Defined

2007-03-13T07:22:00.000-07:00

Transit Oriented Development (TOD) refers to residential and Commercial Centers designed to maximize access by Transit and Nonmotorized transportation, and with other features to Encourage Transit Ridership. A TOD neighborhood has a center with a rail or bus station, surrounded by relatively high-density development, with progressively lower-density spreading outwards. For example, the neighborhood center may have a transit station and a few multi-story commercial and residential buildings surrounded by several blocks of townhouses and small-lot single-family residential, and larger-lot single-family housing farther away. TOD neighborhoods typically have a diameter of one-quarter to one-half mile (stations spaced half to 1 mile apart), which represents pedestrian scale distances. It includes these design features (Morris, 1996):

The neighborhood is designed for Cycling and Walking, with adequate facilities and attractive street conditions.

Streets have good Connectivity and Traffic Calming features to control vehicle traffic speeds.

Mixed-use development that includes shops, schools and other public services, and a variety of housing types and prices, within each neighborhood.

Parking Management to reduce the amount of land devoted to parking compared with conventional development, and to take advantage of the parking cost savings associated with reduced automobile use.

Transit Oriented Development generally requires at least 6 residential units per acre in residential areas and 25 employees per acre in Commercial Centers, and about twice that for premium quality transit, such as rail service (Pushkarev and Zupan, 1977; Ewing, 1999; Robert Cervero, et al, 2004). These densities create adequate transit ridership to justify frequent service, and help create active street life and commercial activities, such as grocery stores and coffee shops, within convenient walking distance of homes and worksites. However, other factors are also important beside simple density. Transit ridership is also affected by factors such as employment density and Clustering, demographic mix (students, seniors and lower-income people tend to be heavy transit users), transit pricing and rider subsidies, Parking Pricing and Road Tolls, the quality of transit service, the effectiveness of transit Marketing, walkability, and street design. A particular density may be inadequate to support transit service by itself, but becomes adequate if implemented with a variety of Transit Encouragement and Smart Growth strategies. The assumption that transit cannot be effective except in large cities with high population densities can be a self-fulfilling prophecy, because it results in transport and land use decisions that favor automobile travel over transit.

Mixed-Use Hotel & Culture

2007-03-12T13:03:00.000-07:00

The prescription for reviving downtown American cities, everyone seems to agree these days, is culture. And so as developers rely increasingly on creating mixed-use districts, it’s perhaps not surprising that some are developing mixed-use buildings. The 21C hotel in downtown Louisville, KY is the latest attempt at a sized-down cultural destination.

The 21C, designed by Deborah Berke Architects for philanthropists Steve Wilson and Laura Lee Brown, is a hotel-museum-restaurant amalgam in a renovated 5-building former warehouse complex. The art hotel—or museum with beds—is a single, dense cultural site devoted to both leisure and function.

What separates this building from other leisure ventures is the conscious integration of culture into all of its physical spaces. The hotel displays contemporary art pieces within guest rooms and hallways, as well as in stand-alone gallery spaces. Guests (paying guests, that is) don’t have to wander far from their living space to experience a cultural attraction; they see it before they’ve brushed their teeth. Wilson and Brown hired Deborah Berke Architects, known for their deft use of minimalist design, to accentuate the experience of viewing contemporary art. Berke faced the challenge of renovating the old warehouses while retaining part of their historic character. The façade of the original building remains, but the architects removed a large chunk of the middle to create an atrium accessible to interior hotel rooms. The union of the old and the new structures is a subtle reminder that boundaries of urban space—whether physical or experiential— are open to negotiation. Berke was positive about the synthesis of functions in 21C, and its ability to appeal to visitors. “[The] vision,” she recalls, “was that there be culture, there be food, there be destination.” The 21C encompasses all these activities, and suggests that the project of keeping disparate downtown experiences discreet may be expendable. Indeed, cities keen to create attractive cultural districts will no doubt continue to experiment with this hyper-mixed-use model.

Reclaiming Suburbia

2007-03-12T11:17:00.000-07:00

Excerpts from "Breaking the Density Deadlock" by ALAN EHRENHALT

Tysons Corner isn’t much to look at. I don’t mean simply that it’s unattractive — although it is — but that when you pass through it, along the main commercial strip of Route 7, in Northern Virginia’s Fairfax County, you don’t even get the feeling that anything substantial is there. You see a long, loose string of office buildings built in the 1970s and ’80s, scattered over a stretch of two or three miles, few of them close together or in any way congruent with each other. You pass two huge regional shopping malls, both tucked behind vast parking lots and barely visible from the highway. You don’t know for sure when you’ve reached the place, and there’s no way to tell when you’ve left.

If you work in local government anywhere, the odds are you have heard the joke that there are two things Americans can’t stand: sprawl and density. I refer to it as a joke, but in fact it comes close to being a literal truth. Millions of Americans who live in places like Fairfax County visit places such as Boston and San Francisco and wish they could recreate some of that urbanity and elegance for themselves. But faced with the reality of what true urban sophistication requires — height, big crowds, and strangers from the city flocking in on trains, they back off. That’s the deadlock of density.

The developer of this project, the Macerich Co. of California, is pressing all the right New Urbanist buttons. Its computerized graphics envision spacious plazas, sculpture gardens, skating rinks and performance space. Macerich talks about making the Intersection of Routes 7 and 123 into a new “Central Park,” a “100 percent downtown corner.”

Most intriguing of all, Macerich is promising to take the blank acres of asphalt that dominate Tysons now and superimpose a grid that would provide 54 additional pedestrian-friendly streets for traffic to move in, generate a huge increase in sidewalk capacity, provide up to 14,000 curbside parking spaces, and in the end create something that doesn’t just possess the density of a city but actually looks like a city.

My guess is that when all of this development is completed, 10 or 15 years from now, I do not expect that Tysons Corner will much resemble the green pedestrian oasis pictured in the computerized Macerich sketches. But I think it will be quite a bit better than what is there now. I also think it will be a commercial success.

I’m convinced of that because I see all around me a generation of young, mainstream, middle-class adults — label them any way you want to — who are looking for some form of mid-level urban experience, not bohemian inner-city adventure but definitely not cul-de-sacs and long commutes. There are more of them coming into the residential market every year. They like the idea of having some space, but they aren’t fleeing in terror at the mention of density. They aren’t willing to sell their cars, but they appreciate the advantage of having another way to get around. If Tysons Corner is rebuilt on a reasonable human scale and with a modicum of physical appeal, they will go for it, imperfect as it may be.

And then we will begin to see experiments of this sort in suburbs all over the country, launched by developers and local governments that may still be a little nervous about density but will know one thing for sure: If Tysons Corner can be reborn, nothing in the suburbs is beyond hope.If the effort to rebuild Tysons Corner somehow succeeds, it will become a national model for reclaiming suburbia.

New Urbanism & ‘low-impact’ infrastructure

2007-03-12T09:19:00.000-07:00

by Philip Langdon
Courtesy New Urban News

Natural drainage systems and other ecologically advanced technologies are coming to walkable communities.

A new urbanist-led charrette in November 2006 recommended that New Orleans be redeveloped with “natural drainage systems” — techniques allowing stormwater to soak into the ground rather than be piped, sometimes full of pollutants, to bodies of water like Lake Pontchartrain.The recommendation, intended for the Gentilly section of the flood-ravaged city, is a sign of new urbanists’ emerging interest in engineering and landscape systems based on processes found in nature.

In recent years, environmental activists have argued that rain should be handled in a more natural fashion — through “rain gardens,” bioswales, and other ecological features — instead of relying heavily on underground pipes and other conventional engineering mechanisms. A growing number of new urbanists are moving toward this ecological approach.Inquiries by New Urban News found nature-based environmental techniques being incorporated into projects and plans ranging from Traditional Neighborhood Developments (TNDs) in North Carolina and Pennsylvania to urban neighborhoods and HOPE VI public housing redevelopments in Portland, Oregon, and Seattle. (An article on using stormwater management to enhance civic spaces is on page 5 of the December 2006 issue.)

The approach is known by many names, including high-performance infrastructure, natural drainage systems, bioretention, low-impact development, and sustainable stormwater management. “’Laying lightly on the land’ is perhaps the best term we have,” says Tom Low, the Charlotte, North Carolina-based director of town planning for Duany Plater-Zyberk & Company (DPZ). “It basically means using less pipe. The water sheets across the surface. The amount of surface pavement per dwelling unit is reduced.”

Low led a group that last month completed a study of a TND called Griffin Park, to be built in Greenville County, South Carolina. The study looks at building Griffin Park as a TND with conventional engineering versus building it as a TND with a more nature-based system. The natural approach envisions less pavement, fewer curbs and gutters, less storm sewer pipe, and fewer storm sewer inlets, thereby reducing some of the development’s costs. The study is expected to be used to promote natural drainage options among new urbanists.

THE NATURAL APPROACH

For Woodsong, a 22-acre TND in Shallotte, North Carolina, developer Buddy Milliken insisted on natural methods of handling rainwater. In front of a series of cottages on narrow lots is a concrete street 300 feet long and 10 feet (one lane) wide. The center of the street consists of a three-foot-wide strip of pervious concrete. Rain seeps through the porous pavement and a rock subbase and enters the ground, rather than being concentrated in storm drains and pipes. The narrow, curbless street, passing within about seven feet of the houses, helps replenish an aquifer. At the same time, it helps create a more relaxed and intimate setting, making the properties more valuable.

A ditch that cut across the mostly wooded property prior to development has been modified by installing “small check dams or gabions to slow the water down,” Milliken says. Advocates of natural drainage often sum up the basic principles in these words: “Slow the water down, spread it around, and get it into the ground.” Rain from roofs may be captured in cisterns or directed into rain gardens — mild depressions filled with natural material that absorbs the water and gives it time to percolate into the soil. “These are very, very simple things,” says Milliken.

Low devised Woodsong’s neighborhood plan, which includes a man-made wetland in one area and a pond in another. Milliken says that in a conventional development the pond might have been dug in an out-of-the-way spot and then ringed by a chain-link fence. The detention and retention ponds that have proliferated in recent decades are often unsightly and hard to maintain — a waste of valuable real estate. Milliken chose instead to place the pond in a prominent location, in front of a group of houses, forming a neighborhood centerpiece which helps to control rainwater and let it soak into the ground.

At the edges of the pond are four small constructed wetland bays that slow and filter the water before it enters the pond. Mary Vogel, principal in PlanGreen in Washington DC advises against ponds because, among other things, their water may heat up, harming fish life. However, Peg Staeheli, principal in SvR Design Company in Seattle, says a detention pond is needed in some situations to control the water flow. Woodsong’s pond is apparently an aesthetic plus, which has translated into stronger real estate values.“Everything we’ve done has been with the intent to get a financial return —not necessarily the next day,” Milliken says of Woodsong, which he has been building since 1999. “New Urbanism and the environment are mutually reinforcing.”The Oct. 29-Nov. 3 Gentilly charrette, led by Andres Duany and covering 17 New Orleans neighborhoods, recommended using natural drainage systems to absorb water, decrease flooding, and lessen pollution in the runoff, much of which goes into Lake Pontchartrain untreated. Vogel says one instrument is “roadside bioswales — concave gardens planted with native perennial plants and trees — [which] increase absorption and add beauty and resiliency to the environment.” These can be placed between streets and sidewalks.

New Orleans contains many road medians (New Orleanians call them “neutral ground”) that were damaged by last year’s flooding. The intention is to dig into some of these medians and install a mix of soil conditioners, organic mulches, and rock, capable of holding and gradually dispersing a large quantity of water. The economics are favorable, says Vogel. “Whereas conventional street and storm drain maintenance costs increase over time as the result of aging materials, pipes, and drains, natural drainage systems actually become more effective over time, as plants and trees mature.”

One city that is a leader in combining natural drainage with walkable streets and neighborhoods is Seattle, where sustainable stormwater management has been advocated by the Puget Sound Action Team and has been put into practice by firms such as SvR Design. SvR designed High Point, a mixed-income, 34-block, 1,600-unit Hope VI project that features vegetated and grassy swales, porous concrete sidewalks, and front-yard rain gardens. South Lake Union, a large mixed-use development to be built north of downtown Seattle, may also employ natural drainage. (For techniques at High Point, see www.thehighpoint.com or www.svrdesign.com.)

Financing For New Urbanist Projects

2007-03-08T14:33:00.000-08:00

Philip Langdon
Courtesy of the Rose Companies

Across the United States, investment pools are suddenly cropping up, offering what could eventually be substantial financial backing for new urbanist development. At least three such pools either are being formed or are starting operations, based in New York, Denver, and northern California.

If they succeed and expand, the pools may provide a means by which foundations, universities, pension funds, and other institutions can invest in environmentally advanced new urbanist projects. Chris Leinberger, a visiting fellow at Brookings Institution and a faculty member at the University of Michigan, says institutions can place some of their assets in the investment pools, and the pools in turn can invest the money in urban development projects — benefiting society while producing a reasonable return.

These are the three pools:

New York-based developer Jonathan Rose has started the Rose Smart Growth Investment Fund, a $100 million fund that purchases real estate in downtowns, walkable communities, main streets, and transit-oriented developments throughout the US.

Kacey Fitzpatrick is forming the Green Living Fund in Santa Cruz, California, a $100 million fund that she says will invest in “residential projects and mixed-use projects in existing urban areas and preferably adjacent to transit,” all in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Dennis Fleming, who has been active in Denver’s “green” building movement, is organizing the New Commons Fund, which aims to invest in energy-efficient new urbanist projects with easy access to mass transportation. It will start as a fund of at least $50 million and may gradually grow to $200 to $300 million, investing in a number of metropolitan areas.

How large a proportion of the pools’ money will be directed to new projects, as opposed to the purchase and improvement of existing buildings, will vary from one fund to another. Although the initial sums are not terribly large by national development standards, Fleming believes the funds can play a critical role; they can demonstrate the profitability of New Urbanism and overcome the financial world’s resistance to projects that mix a variety of uses, intermingle houses of differing price levels, and are pedestrian oriented.

Architects, planners, developers, and journalists have all come to recognize the appeal of New Urbanism in recent years, Fleming says, but financiers have lagged behind. “The money side,” he observes, “is always the last to show up at the party.” If the investment pools produce figures showing that new urban projects routinely generate an attractive return, the stage will be set for a leap in new urbanist activity, including the formation of one or more New Urbanism-focused real estate investment trusts (REITs), he says.

Rose’s fund will mainly buy existing buildings and make them more energy-efficient and environmentally benign. The fund will also carry out some brand-new development.

His fund’s first acquisition, announced in April, was a pair of downtown Seattle buildings — the 14-story Vance Building dating to 1929 and the 3-story Sterling Building from 1910, which together were purchased for $23.1 million. Rose told The Seattle Times that the buildings’ locations near bus lines in the city fit the fund’s philosophy of investing in smart-growth locations rather than suburban settings that depend on automobiles and parking lots. Rose aims to make the buildings “the greenest and healthiest historic buildings in the Seattle marketplace,” changes that he hopes will attract more tenants and boost the rents. Planned building upgrades include better energy controls, a well-insulated roof, and the use of recycled and nontoxic products.

Some of Rose’s investors will be “high-net-worth individuals, most of whom are in the real estate business,” he told New Urban News. Foundations, colleges, and not-for-profit organizations are also expected to invest in the fund, which Rose sees as an alternative to “buying stocks in REITs which are based on sprawl.”

In the past several years, a few philanthropies, such as McCune Charitable Foundation in New Mexico (see April 2006 New Urban News) and the Arnold Fund in Covington, Georgia (see story on page 6), have invested in new urbanist development in their home state or home county. Many more foundations would be interested in investing through a pool, Leinberger says, because they wouldn’t have the risk and responsibility of managing the projects themselves; the fund would do that for them.

Monroe center... emerging BOHO Center?

2007-03-06T14:20:00.000-08:00

One of the most desirable locations for BOHO centers is at or near transit hubs such as light rail stations. The new Monroe Center in New Jersey is a perfect example of this new trend.

"A culturally friendly transit village"
An example of the opportunities provide by transit-oriented development is the 123-unit Monroe Center in New Jersy, described by the Hudson Reporter (24 January 2006) as a "high-rise condominium tower" which "will ultimately be part of a 435-unit development on a 5.5-acre site just steps from the Ninth Street stop of the Hudson Bergen Light Rail....[it] will include four high-rise residential buildings of between 10 and 13 stories, with ground floor retail, commercial arts space, and mezzanine space." It's intended to be "a culturally friendly transit village", according to the paper.

This ideal location has been attracting an eclectic mix of artists, entrepreneurs, and small businesses. The paper goes on to note:

"Already underway is the renovation of the interior of the existing Monroe Center for the Arts at 720 Monroe St. Since opening in 1990, the converted Levelor Blinds Factory has maintained an eclectic mixture of businesses that now include ad agencies, interior designers, cake bakers, architects, toy makers, dance instructors, and yoga studios. "

Accesible Urban Transit Hub

Another selling point, said the developer, is the project's location. He said that because of the property's proximity to the light rail, this project will be a good example of the "smart growth" principle of a "transit friendly community."

A transit village is a state-promoted planning initiative to redevelop and revitalize communities around transit facilities, making them appealing choices for people to live in, while lessening their reliance on cars.

More than required parking
In Hoboken, parking is always an issue, and this is one of the few projects that will provide more parking spaces than the zoning requires. When fully built out, the project will have 1,120 garage parking spaces to complement the surrounding off-street parking.

Outdoor Plaza
According to the developers, outdoor areas at Monroe Center will include one large plaza with stylistic fountains, seating decks and a "hammock park." Each new building at the community will also feature rooftop gardens. "Monroe Center's appeal as a destination will be enhanced by its substantial outdoor public areas," points out Gerard Saddel, a partner of Monroe Center Development, LLC. "A series of public parks and a plaza will be scattered throughout the entire development."

Form-Based Codes

2007-03-05T14:48:00.000-08:00

by Planning & Design Institute

Regulations known as "form–based codes" offer an approach that favors walkable neighborhoods, a variety of housing choices, and mixed use developments. Unlike conventional zoning, form–based codes make it easier to find a balance between maintaining a community's local character and, at the same time facilitating high–quality development projects.

The codes can be applied to new growth ares, existing neighborhoods, special districts, as well as entire communities.

The regulations focus on the size, form, and placement of buildings and parking locations. With form–based codes, there is flexibility in combining residential commercial uses on property, and less emphasis on specific densities. A land owner or developer will have more options in offering single–family homes, apartments, offices, or retail as long as the building form conforms to the community's vision reflected in the form–based codes. Overall, form–based codes give a community the opportunity to respond to market demands in a manner that follows the principles of smart growth planning.

Key elements in form–based code may include:

A Regulating Plan which may include a map of the study area that specify where specific building forms apply
Standards for building forms
Standards for street and sidewalks
Design Guidelines which address architecture and landscaping
Clearly defined processes for application and review
Definitions of technical terms

In addition, form–based codes are typically written to be user–friendly, and often supplement regulatory text with graphics to help illustrate specific regulations, such as minimum and maximum heights of buildings.

Creating Walkable Neighborhoods

2007-03-04T19:50:00.000-08:00

by smartgrowth.org

Walkable communities are desirable places to live, work, learn, worship and play, and therefore a key component of smart growth. Their desirability comes from two factors. First, walkable communities locate within an easy and safe walk goods (such as housing, offices, and retail) and services (such as transportation, schools, libraries) that a community resident or employee needs on a regular basis. Second, by definition, walkable communities make pedestrian activity possible, thus expanding transportation options, and creating a streetscape that better serves a range of users -- pedestrians, bicyclists, transit riders, and automobiles. To foster walkability, communities must mix land uses and build compactly, and ensure safe and inviting pedestrian corridors.

Walkable communities are nothing new. Outside of the last half-century communities worldwide have created neighborhoods, communities, towns and cities premised on pedestrian access. Within the last fifty years public and private actions often present created obstacles to walkable communities. Conventional land use regulation often prohibits the mixing of land uses, thus lengthening trips and making walking a less viable alternative to other forms of travel. This regulatory bias against mixed-use development is reinforced by private financing policies that view mixed-use development as riskier than single-use development. Many communities -- particularly those that are dispersed and largely auto-dependent -- employ street and development design practices that reduce pedestrian activity.

As the personal and societal benefits of pedestrian friendly communities are realized – benefits which include lower transportation costs, greater social interaction, improved personal and environmental health, and expanded consumer choice -- many are calling upon the public and private sector to facilitate the development of walkable places. Land use and community design plays a pivotal role in encouraging pedestrian environments. By building places with multiple destinations within close proximity, where the streets and sidewalks balance all forms of transportation, communities have the basic framework for encouraging walkability.

Urban Redevelopment Do’s & Don’ts

2007-03-02T14:27:00.000-08:00

By Michael S. Weiner

The last 50 years of real estate development have often been innovative, but also, in many cases, downright dreadful in the approach to redeveloping downtown areas. Today, city fathers struggle with breaking from the past trends of urban sprawl and walled communities to redevelop urban areas that will increase downtown real estate values, attract businesses and residents, and enhance cultural and civic activities.

The success or failure of these endeavors will have lasting economic impact on those cities in competition to become regional destinations, capturing discretionary spending or seeking to exponentially increase their current tax base. Failure to create an economically sound downtown can ruin a city. Finding the right formula can catapult a city into the national limelight, creating a trickle down effect that results in higher-priced real estate, a strong retail and business environment, and a reputation that draws people to the area.

Do enter a third generation of thought. Before World War II, neighborhoods in urban areas seemed to evolve organically. Many times neighborhoods were organized along ethnic lines. This was immediately followed by the era of urban sprawl, massive malls, and the introduction of walled communities. At that time, there was an aversion to urban areas and people were fleeing to the perceived safety of the suburbs.

Don’t think this is suburbia. Many cities cannot resist the temptation to create suburban centers in urban pockets. Large areas are leveled to create a contrived center that is nothing more than an outdoor mall. The problem with this strategy is that cities are not capitalizing on the already existing local flavor, history, and charm to create vibrant, dynamic areas to which crowds will flock. They tend to have a “walled-in” feeling, one that excludes the urban environment rather than invites.

Do encourage jaywalking. Though this may sound a bit unusual, urban areas actually lend themselves to this type of civil disobedience, given the greater pedestrian density in vital urban areas. Consequently, it’s important to have no more than two lanes of road traffic, and to discourage car speeds of more than 30 mph through the use of traffic circles, speed bumps, and stop signs. Parallel parking also slows everyone down.

Don’t fall for the fallacy of mixed use. Too many developers cling to a belief that an apartment building with a few thousand square feet of retail thrown in on the ground floor constitutes “mixed use.” This is usually a formula for disaster simply because the limited number of tenants cannot support these small retailers. These small mixed-use projects have limited parking and residents tend to get angered by others using their space. These projects are clearly not a new urban environment and usually fail. A watchword for redevelopment should be “sustainability,” retail survives only with enough households conveniently located using its services and buying its goods.

Do capitalize on history. Successful downtown redevelopments reflect their cities’ history and personality. They build on their roots and successfully market their new “old” images. As a result, people know what they’re getting when they decide to live, dine or visit. It’s that “branding” thing that advertising firms love so much.

The world is sprinkled with examples of locations that have become attractions based on the authenticity of their culture. Pamplona has the running of the bulls. Sedona, AZ has capitalized on its rock formations and Indian art. Aspen, CO carved an initial reputation on its classical music festival. People flock to different neighborhoods of New York City for different experiences--to Tribeca, Chelsea, Greenwich Village, the Upper East Side, and Central Park West, to name just a few. But these experiences did not just happen; they evolved, becoming unique to their districts and locales.
There’s no question that the concept of New Urbanism will continue. It is up to the real estate community to create the proper, and profitable, destinations.

The BOHO Philosophy

2007-03-01T15:50:00.000-08:00

BOHO Developments seek to offer a compelling alternative for those who are dissatisfied with the choices provided by conventional development. Conventional development emphasizes the private realm, auto dependency, single use pods, privacy, exclusivity, and bigger and bigger private residences. BOHO Developments emphasize the public realm, walkability, mixed uses, community, diversity, and quality over quantity.

A Walkable Community
BOHO Developments pragmatically accommodates cars, but are be designed for people. They are to be very walkable. Cars travel slowly, and sidewalk and street designs emphasize pedestrian comfort and safety. There are plenty of interesting things to walk to, because of the fine-grained mix of uses. Walks won’t be too long, because the development is relatively compact. And the walks are safe, because there are plenty of eyes on the street at all times.

Environmental Considerations
BOHO Developments site plan, as well as construction and management procedures, emphasize resource efficiency, environmental protection and restoration. Developments incorporate elements of nature in the neighborhood and make them part of people’s daily experience. Street trees are especially important.

A Place for Commerce
The commercial center of a BOHO Development have retail stores that serve the practical everyday needs of the BOHO Development residents and its surrounding neighborhoods – needs that are currently not well served. And because of its unique character, rare good urbanism, and easy access, they also attract businesses that are a destination for citizens of the entire metro areas and beyond.

A Place to Live
The residential elements of A BOHO center cover the entire spectrum from small loft apartments above shops to larger live/work condominiums. Developments aspire to keep the scale of individual buildings rather small, which will enhance the ability to have an attractive mix of housing types throughout the neighborhood.

A Place to Work
BOHO Developments feature a traditional fine-grained mix of different residential types as well as retail stores, office space, civic buildings, people-friendly streets, squares, and recreational facilities. Live-workloftsandtraditionaloffices are pivitol the neighborhood, as the daytime occupants and visitors they draw to the neighborhood will be very helpful in maintaining a vibrant, active, daytime environment.

A Place to Gather
BOHO Developments incorporate civic gathering places, which include public green spaces, pedestrian-oriented streets, recreational facilities, shops and restaurants. These civic places reinforce a sense of neighborhood and help provide the glue that holds the people of the community together.

Austin Independent's Links Developers With Local Businesses

2007-03-01T07:11:00.000-08:00

by David Grogan

The Austin (Texas) Independent Business Alliance (AIBA) recently launched an online database of commercial properties whose owners or developers are seeking community-based businesses to fill vacant retail spaces. The database, the newest phase of AIBA's program Connecting & Linking Independents With Commercial Development (CLIC), helps locally owned businesses identify available properties in which to open or expand.

Steve Bercu, owner of BookPeople and president of AIBA, told BTW that the organization has been "relatively successful in getting the city to promote local businesses to developers." But, he added, "There were a lot of developers looking for local businesses, and they didn't have a clue [where] to look... so our idea was to figure out a way to get them together."

Toward that end, in May 2006, AIBA debuted its first annual CLIC Trade Show, which it modeled on trade shows for large developers held yearly in Las Vegas. The CLIC show seeks to link local businesses with commercial developers and to provide local business owners with information and tools to grow their business. In addition, AIBA incorporated workshops that provide business owners with information about municipal resources and legal considerations pertaining to expansion. For developers, the show includes sessions that introduce them to the needs of small businesses. The second annual trade show is scheduled for May 15, 2007.

"The trade show was one idea," said Bercu, "and now we've put together the online database.... Businesses can go there and developers can go there ... and see who is interested." The database, the CLIC Commercial Vacancies, is accessible via AIBA's website, www.ibuyaustin.com.

Noting that Austin has many neighborhood associations, and these organizations are now seeking to bring in independent retail, Bercu added, "There is nothing more rewarding than to see the neighborhood associations asking for local businesses." Most of the associations are "very active ... and having them in support of local business is very good."

The CLIC program is just one of AIBA's economic initiatives. Through its Independent Business Investment Zones (IBIZ) program, AIBA works with city officials, neighborhood groups, and representatives of commercial districts within Austin to identify unique independent commercial districts. AIBA then helps coordinate the enhancement of those districts to increase appeal to existing and potential independent businesses and to customers and clients and promotes the area and facilitates events. AIBA has amassed a database of local entertainers and vendors and compiled information about local ordinances affecting the events and media contacts for use by IBIZ district businesses. AIBA now has four IBIZ districts and, with the help of city funding, has hired an IBIZ program coordinator

Importance of Independents

2007-03-01T06:58:00.000-08:00

by David Grogan

Over the past few years, a number of economic studies -- including two conducted by Civic Economics, a leader in the field of progressive economic development -- have consistently calculated that locally owned businesses contribute more than three times as much economic value to a community than do chain retailers. So when the San Francisco Locally Owned Merchants Alliance (SFLOMA) asked Civic Economics to conduct a similar economic study of San Francisco, the firm's partners told SFLOMA that they weren't interested.

They wanted to do something more.

Matt Cunningham, who founded Civic Economics with business partner Dan Houston, told BTW, "We wanted to advance the research. We thought it would be interesting to see something else out there."

The new economic study, which got underway about three weeks ago, will analyze a number of factors.

First, the study will seek to determine locally owned merchants' total market share in San Francisco. Second, incorporating data from Civic Economics' previous studies, "Economic Impact Analysis -- A Case Study: Local Merchants vs. Chain Retailers" and "The Andersonville Study of Retail Economics," the new report will analyze the impact of an "x-percent" increase in local shopping and then determine what exactly happens to the extra money going back to the community.

"We don't think [a study like this] has been done," Cunningham said.

Significantly, a large portion of the money that was raised to fund the study is from the bookselling community, said Hut Landon, executive director for the Northern California Independent Booksellers Association (NCIBA) and SFLOMA's project coordinator for the study. In addition to NCIBA, among the study's other supporters are the American Booksellers Association, the Great Lake Booksellers Association, the New Atlantic Independent Booksellers Association, the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association, the Mountains & Plains Independent Booksellers Association, and individual booksellers.

"We think this study will be great for locally owned merchants. It will give us some talking points with consumers," Landon said. Noting that past research indicates that consumers who buy an average of 10 books per year buy only four of those books from their local bookstores, he added, "This will give them some other reasons to shop at their local independent bookstore. If they shift their spending habits ... look at what happens to the local economy. This report will quantify that."

In addition, since there are few municipalities that are not seeking additional revenue, independent retailers around the country will be able to take this study to their local lawmakers to show them one simple solution to their monetary woes -- supporting locally owned businesses, Landon said.

Similar to the Austin and Andersonville reports, the San Francisco economic study, which as yet does not have a projected release date, will be relevant to all communities. "This study can be used by everybody," Landon said. "We are happy to share this information."

Ten Principles for Creating Successful Squares

2007-02-28T14:48:00.000-08:00

by Project for Public Space PPS

The Small details add up to great places.

Squares have been a core focus of PPS beginning with our first project 30 years ago--Rockefeller Center's Channel Gardens. We've honed the ten principles below based on the hundreds of squares--the good and the bad--that we've analyzed and observed since then. What stands out most is that design is only a small fraction of what goes into making a great square. To really succeed, a square must take into account a host of factors that extend beyond its physical dimensions.
1. Image and Identity
A popular square in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Historically, squares were the center of communities, and they traditionally helped shape the identity of entire cities. Sometimes a fountain was used to give the square a strong image: Think of the majestic Trevi Fountain in Rome or the Swann Fountain in Philadelphia's Logan Circle. The image of many squares was closely tied to the great civic buildings located nearby, such as cathedrals, city halls, or libraries. Today, creating a square that becomes the most significant place in a city--that gives identity to whole communities--is a huge challenge, but meeting this challenge is absolutely necessary if great civic squares are to return.

2. Attractions and Destinations
Ghirardelli Square, San Francisco.

Any great square has a variety of smaller "places" within it to appeal to various people. These can include outdoor cafés, fountains, sculpture, or a bandshell for performances. These attractions don't need to be big to make the square a success. In fact, some of the best civic squares have numerous small attractions such as a vendor cart or playground that, when put together, draw people throughout the day. We often use the idea of "The Power of Ten" to set goals for destinations within a square. Creating ten good places, each with ten things to do, offers a full program for a successful square.
3. Amenities
Circular benches provide a comfortable place to sit in Rockefeller Center, New York City.

A square should feature amenities that make it comfortable for people to use. A bench or waste receptacle in just the right location can make a big difference in how people choose to use a place. Lighting can strengthen a square's identity while highlighting specific activities, entrances, or pathways. Public art can be a great magnet for children of all ages to come together. Whether temporary or permanent, a good amenity will help establish a convivial setting for social interaction.
4. Flexible Design
Tennis on the square, Copenhagen.

The use of a square changes during the course of the day, week, and year. To respond to these natural fluctuations, flexibility needs to be built in. Instead of a permanent stage, for example, a retractable or temporary stage could be used. Likewise, it is important to have on-site storage for movable chairs, tables, umbrellas, and games so they can be used at a moment's notice.

5. Seasonal Strategy
The holiday market in New York's Union Square.

A successful square can't flourish with just one design or management strategy. Great squares such as Bryant Park, the plazas of Rockefeller Center, and Detroit's new Campus Martius change with the seasons. Skating rinks, outdoor cafés, markets, horticulture displays, art and sculpture help adapt our use of the space from one season to the next.

6. Access
A short pedestrian crossing at Plaza Santa Ana in Madrid, Spain.

To be successful, a square needs to be easy to get to. The best squares are always easily accessible by foot: Surrounding streets are narrow; crosswalks are well marked; lights are timed for pedestrians, not vehicles; traffic moves slowly; and transit stops are located nearby. A square surrounded by lanes of fast-moving traffic will be cut off from pedestrians and deprived of its most essential element: people.

7. The Inner Square & the Outer Square
Ground floor retail rings the edge of this square in Verona, Italy.

Visionary park planner Frederick Law Olmsted's idea of the "inner park" and the "outer park" is just as relevant today as it was over 100 years ago. The streets and sidewalks around a square greatly affect its accessibility and use, as do the buildings that surround it. Imagine a square fronted on each side by 15-foot blank walls -- that is the worst-case scenario for the outer square. Then imagine that same square situated next to a public library: the library doors open right onto the square; people sit outside and read on the steps; maybe the children's reading room has an outdoor space right on the square, or even a bookstore and cafe. An active, welcoming outer square is essential to the well-being of the inner square.

8. Reaching Out Like an Octopus
A great square reaches out into the surrounding neighborhood, like Piazza Maggiore in Bologna, Italy.

Just as important as the edge of a square is the way that streets, sidewalks and ground floors of adjacent buildings lead into it. Like the tentacles of an octopus extending into the surrounding neighborhood, the influence of a good square (such as Union Square in New York) starts at least a block away. Vehicles slow down, walking becomes more enjoyable, and pedestrian traffic increases. Elements within the square are visible from a distance, and the ground floor activity of buildings entices pedestrians to move toward the square.

9. The Central Role of Management
Attentive maintenance is an essential part of good management in St. Stephen's Green, Dublin.

The best places are ones that people return to time and time again. The only way to achieve this is through a management plan that understands and promotes ways of keeping the square safe and lively. For example, a good manager understands existing and potential users and gears events to both types of people. Good managers become so familiar with the patterns of how people use the park that waste receptacles get emptied at just the right time and refreshment stands are open when people most want them. Good managers create a feeling of comfort and safety in a square, fixing and maintaining it so that people feel assured that someone is in charge.
10. Diverse Funding Sources
Sponsorships can help fund events like Festa Italiana in Portland's Pioneer Courthouse Square.

A well-managed square is generally beyond the scope of the average city parks or public works department, which is why partnerships have been established to operate most of the best squares in the United States. These partnerships seek to supplement what the city can provide with funding from diverse sources, including--but not limited to--rent from cafés, markets or other small commercial uses on the site; taxes on adjacent properties; film shoots; and benefit fundraisers.

Importance of a SQUARE

2007-02-28T13:38:00.000-08:00

by whaday 1.30.07

Take a look at "Squares" by Mark Childs, published in 2005. It is a design manual book for urban designers around the concept of the plaza, square, green, etc. (he does discuss other forms of public space and classifies them).

In planning and architecture here in New Mexico, the plaza is a key typology we all must study. No plaza is worth its weight in frijoles without retail to ring the exterior. This is what gives it life. It is the "third place" and provides the excuse for being there at all, let alone a reason to stop.

The typical scenario (not always followed) for the Laws of the Indies settlement requirements included an open rectangle of specified proportions with the church on the north side, government functions on the south and retail on the sides.

Make sure you do consider the role of vendors in public space in some sense, though, They are extremely important in addressing some of the key factors that make public space lively (and are adaptable to locations where a permanent structure may be impractical or costly). Again, Childs' book has lots on this, as does William Whyte and the Project for Public Spaces (based largely on Whyte's writing). Food is especially important, which Childs relates to the psychologist Maslowe's "hierrchy of needs" (meet the most basic needs first).

New Urbanism (one view)

2007-02-28T11:56:00.000-08:00

by VirtualCity

New urbanism occasionally encompasses other city planning systems such as smart growth, and is occasionally recognized as a separate entity. The idea claims to originate in the early twentieth century with the development of the neighborhoods it uses as models, though as a movement, it is responding to the perceived weaknesses in suburban development.

Whether or not smart growth is an offshoot of new urbanism, the two share a number of concepts. Both emphasize the important of a compact, walkable community center, and the assimilation of different types of housing and commercial buildings. An emphasis on environmentally-conscious building, the renovation of brown- or greyfield land, and historic preservation are other similarities.

However, because new urbanism was created as a specific theory for urban design rather than simply being based on a looser set of ideals, its definition is more concrete than that of smart growth. Andres Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk founded the Congress for the New Urbanism, inspired by the time the husband-and-wife team spent at Yale. Their guidelines for a ‘new urban’ neighborhood suggest the inclusion of most of these elements:

A recognizable center for the town/city/community, such as a green square or distinctive intersection, in which the transit stop is also situated.
Buildings in the neighborhood center placed close to the street, to form a well-defined space.
A walk of not much more than 5 minutes from any home to the community center, or approximately 2,000 feet.
Mixed housing types, including apartments, rowhouses and detached homes, to provide a suitable dwelling for people of all ages and all economic means.
An auxiliary building for workspace or a garage apartment is allowed in the backyard of each home.
Parking lots or garages in the back of homes and businesses, rather than fronting the streets.
Shops and offices to sufficiently serve the weekly needs of residents on the edge of the community.
An elementary school close enough for most children to walk from home.
Small parks or playgrounds near every home, not more than a tenth of a mile away.
Streets that create a linked network to disperse traffic.
Relatively narrow streets, suitable for pedestrians and bicycles, preferably lined with trees.
Some major spots in the neighborhood center reserved for buildings to facilitate community meetings and activities, or for religious, cultural, or educational purposes.
A self-governing community, guided by a council that makes decisions on maintenance and change.

There are a number of complaints lodged against new urbanism—the first, a semantics issue, that the scheme is not actually ‘new,’ as it derives its inspiration from American towns of the pre-automobile era. Some argue, conversely, that this halcyon design is based upon a system that exists only in nostalgia. Either way, it has drawn criticism chiefly for emphasizing aesthetic values over practical design, especially as a new urban community might relate to the surrounding region. The delineation of design elements irks those who feel the plan undermines American property rights and civil liberties, while on the opposite side of the spectrum, some accuse it of being a gentrification plan that would force lower-income families from their neighborhoods. Though the transportation habits of new urban residents may improve, the communities tend to remain socially homogenous ones.

Mixed-Use Summit

2007-02-28T11:26:00.000-08:00

by Jetson Green

12/18/06

Never mind the fact that I'm supposed to be finishing a final for intellectual property, I spent the day at Victory Park and the new Dallas W Hotel, attending the Mixed Use Summit, presented by Commercial Property News and Multi-Housing News. I found the seminar extremely enlightening and educational; I wanted to pass on some nuggets of green development wisdom. If you could provide a nugget, a quote of sorts, on green building and the future of sustainability, what would it be? Comments are open.

On Sustainability:

"If you're not thinking about sustainability, you're missing the boat. TODs, urban development, LEED, etc. There are four reasons you should be thinking about it: (1) it's the right thing to do, (2) your competition's doing it, (3) it adds value to the project, and (4) it speeds up the process." - Ken Ryan, Principal of EDAW Inc.

On LEED:

"This is where the future is going and groups are getting staffed up with LEED Accredited Professionals, they're getting everyone certified."
"It's sort of a best practices thing."
"It's easier to sell LEED to corporate tenants, rather than human tenants, but we're starting to get there..."
"If you have a project and people are worried about the bottom line, it's tough to go LEED, especially the contractors--they're hard to get on board, but the sales appeal is very big. Developers know the appeal is big and they're trying to figure it out..."
"In a place like Chicago, with all the requirements they have, you're about 3/4 the way to LEED, so you might as well take the plunge and go all the way."

This conference had many of the best developers and architects from around the country in one room, strategizing and talking about the future of land use, specifically urban development + smart growth, in the US.

BOHO Centers Design Charrette

2007-02-28T11:06:00.000-08:00

What is a BOHO Design Charrette?

Based on the pricipals of New Urbanist Design Charrette, it is

An open process that includes all interested parties
A collaborative process involving all disciplines
A process that produces a feasible plan.

The Charrette combines this creative, intense work session with public workshops and open houses. Its an intense collaborative planning process that harnesses the talents and energies of all interested parties. We bring it a team of professionals experienced in the Town Planning disciple to create and support a feasible plan that represents transformative community change.

The workflow of the Charrette involves a series of design sessions and public input cycles for multiple, consecutive days. All interested parties are invited at scheduled intervals: the city planner, fire department, public works, planning and zoning, council members, and local business owners. Stakeholders in the community become aware of the complexities of development and design issues, and everyone works together to arrive at the best possible solution. They are also welcome to visit the Charrette Studio site throughout the Charrette during open hours. In this way, it does not consume large blocks of time for residents or officials. This input is used to refine the alternatives and create more detailed plans that are again reviewed and critiqued by the public during an open house. The design team further refines and narrows the feedback into a final plan and set of implementation documents to be presented for public confirmation on the final night of the Charrette.

Benefits of a Charrette:
Conventional approaches to the public approval process are failing. Even high quality architectural and planning projects with demonstrable public benefit may lose support without a collaborative approach. The public design Charrette has emerged as an alternative to the "design and present" convention. Charrettes provide a framework for creating a shared vision with community involvement, directed by consultants representing all key disciplines.

It is important to note that the project is not complete when the Charrette is over. Plan refinement and further feedback occur through discussions and a follow-up meeting approximately a month after the Charrette. This allows everyone to check in on the refined Charrette plan and to allow for one final review and comment.

A Detailed Definition of BOHO-centers

2007-02-27T07:30:00.001-08:00

BOHO centers are the only high density mixed use retail and residential development that exceed existing standards in their economic, cultural, social, and environmentally sustainability to create the needed vitality to act as a catalyst of growth for the surrounding area.

Requirements:

Design-The standard project program is a high density multi use environment that is sensitive to the surrounding location in scale and style. Development is an 8-16 acre site with pedestrian-friendly traffic patterns and green gathering spaces for individuals to utilize for its 24-7 days worth of services and active spaces. Project must have close proximity to multiple mass transit opportunities. Projects must be (LEED) Green Building Rating System™ certified.

Economic-Take advantage of undervalued urban land to create a retail district with national independents as anchors and affordable entry level lease for boutique and localized retailers. Smaller Café’s and tavern spaces are set aside to encourage multiple styles of restaurant and relaxing options. Coffeehouses and independent bookstores are encouraged to align around exterior common gathering space. Loft style housing and office options are created with minimum design elements to reduce initial capital investment and encourage a sense of ownership in the leassors by their customization of space.

What are BOHO Centers?

2007-02-26T15:37:00.000-08:00

Briefly,

BOHO Centers are the natural evolution in the high density retail-based mixed use development model that is emerging onto the real estate scene. Imagine if you took one of the popular faux "Mayberry" Lifestyle Centers, stripped away the faux-ness, reduced it to the scale of a small Parisian block or five and built a completely sustainable development that respects as well as enhances its surrounding environment to create a Sense of Place.

Add to the mix some affordable housing lofts for the creative class and workforce, a couple town home lofts for empty nesters... throw in professional services space, unique virtual office spaces, and balance the standard retail chain stores with emerging and authentic shops such as independent bookstores, emerging retail brands, art galleries, grocery store, bodegas, cafe's...

Then you have a BOHO Center