Three new buildings, with 7,553 square feet of retail space on 0.41 acres, bracket a small plaza that replaced a vacant lot at the edge of an established retail area north of downtown Oklahoma City. The three restaurants and eight studio/office spaces complement the area’s established arts anchors.
A leftover infill site in central Phoenix is now home to 25 low-rise condominiums, with a modern design that maximizes the site and minimizes ongoing costs. artHAUS was an architect’s first foray into residential development; as he says, “the design part’s easy for me, but the financing part—that was a big-time learning curve” helped along by a ULI Arizona event.
The Tomorrow Building is a four-story, 40,000 square foot building in downtown Chattanooga, Tennessee that was originally built as a hotel in 1888. After a $9.5 million transformation, it houses 39 furnished micro-unit apartments, shared social and work spaces, and four locally owned retailers. The building’s developer is part of an incubator for early-stage companies, which has found that the co-living concept has helped with retaining employees.
This adaptive use transformed a two-story, 48,000-square-foot commercial building and ornate movie theater lobby into 23 loft apartments, four neighborhood-serving retailers, and a large banquet facility that fills the former lobby. The structure is the most prominent building along the Seneca Street corridor in south Buffalo, New York. The renovation was completed by a local developer and financed by a local bank, together with historic tax credits, local tax incentives, and grants.
The Owyhee is a 139,424 square foot mixed-use building in downtown Boise, Idaho that combines 55,683 square feet of office space, 36 studio and one-bedroom apartments, 23,913 square feet of restaurants and convenience retail, and a ballroom for special events. The building was built in 1910 as a grand hotel, and is fondly remembered by many local residents. Its redevelopment included the first newly built apartments in downtown Boise in decades, and established that a market existed for luxury apartments and creative office space. Many local lenders and investors passed on the Owyhee’s renovation, but out-of-town investors saw its potential both during redevelopment and after completion.
The Newton is an 18,599-square-foot (1,727 sq m) mixed-use retail, dining, office, and events building in Uptown Phoenix, Arizona, housing an independent bookstore with a beer, wine, and coffee bar; a home and garden store; a chef-led restaurant; a small office; and spaces for meetings and events. The Newton hosts hundreds of events each year, whether sponsored by its tenants or booked by the public. It was built within a renovated restaurant/banquet facility whose mid-century modern architecture and old-fashioned cuisine made it a local landmark for 40 years.
AF Bornot Dye Works is a loft apartment and retail project that involved the adaptive use and restoration of three timber and concrete factory buildings north of Center City Philadelphia. The three four-story buildings include 17 rental residences on the upper levels and 13,210 square feet of retail space across two lower levels. The developer, MMPartners, built upon 15 years of experience renovating and building scores of residential and retail properties in the nearby Brewerytown neighborhood. The $10.7 million development was funded with a conventional loan, federal and state historic tax credits, a city incentive loan, partner equity, and a $375,000 mezzanine loan from an online crowdfunding platform.
Jolene’s First Cousin is a two-story, 6,600 square foot retail and residential building in Portland, Oregon with three small retail spaces, two one-bedroom apartments, and 13 bedrooms leased to a transitional housing service provider. Its equity investors, both accredited and unaccredited, accepted a lower current return in order to contribute to the building’s social mission.
This 44-unit rehab, financed by three mission-driven lenders, preserved workforce-affordable homes, reduced crime in the neighborhood—and meets nearly all of its annual electric demand via on-site solar.