Blue Dot Place
Blue Dot Place, the first multi-unit residential building constructed in downtown Colorado Springs since 1960, includes 33 one- and two-bedroom apartments above retail space that houses a local coffee shop and entrepreneurial center.
Building a Truly Bike-Friendly City: Lessons from Amsterdam
Amsterdam has long been recognized as one of the world’s great bicycling cities, and for good reason—the city is home to more bikes than people and a higher percentage of trips within the city are made by bike than by car. While Amsterdam residents have long had a history of cycling to meet their daily needs, a cultural preference for two-wheeled transportation alone does not explain why the city so vastly outpaces its peers in nearly every measure of bicycle use. Instead, over the past half-century, local advocates, elected officials, and other stakeholders have worked to reverse the city’s post–World War II embrace of the automobile by crafting bike-friendly policies and directing funding toward infrastructure that makes meeting one’s daily transportation needs by bike a safe, convenient, and even obvious choice.
New Genesis Apartments
New Genesis Apartments is a 106-unit, mixed-income, mixed-use housing redevelopment project that includes local retailers, affordable artists’ lofts, and supportive housing services. The project is located between downtown Los Angeles’s burgeoning historic core and the city’s Skid Row neighborhood, a 50-block area that is home to more than 4,600 people who lack permanent stable housing.
One Santa Fe
A bright white “side-scraper” stretches three-tenths of a mile along the eastern edge of downtown Los Angeles, sandwiched between railroad yards and the river on one side and the city’s burgeoning loft district on the other. This structure is One Santa Fe, whose 510,000 square feet of space includes 438 apartments (88 of which are affordable units), as well as 78,620 square feet of retail and office space. The development, located on a narrow parking lot leased from a transit authority, was built using $165 million in public and private housing and commercial financing. Surrounding One Santa Fe’s internal pedestrian promenade is an eclectic mix of retailers, including both local convenience businesses and regional specialty shops that complement the neighborhood’s artistic and creative energy.
The Denizen
The Denizen is a 119-unit condominium and townhouse community that includes 105 condo flats in ten separate three-story buildings, 14 townhouses built as duplexes, and three separate open-space/amenity areas. The project is located on an 8.5-acre infill site near downtown Austin, Texas, and was developed as an affordable option for homebuyers desiring an intown location. The plan features a community garden, numerous rain gardens throughout the site, a central amenity area with a swimming pool and a lawn, and a retention basin that also serves as an amphitheater for special events. All units offer either yards or balconies facing an amenity area and views of the downtown Austin skyline.
Ocean Avenue South
Located in downtown Santa Monica, California, Ocean Avenue South is a mixed-use apartment and retail project consisting of residential units serving people with a variety of incomes. It consists of 160 affordable apartments, 158 luxury condominiums, and 20,000 square feet of retail space. The project, the result of extensive community planning and a public/private partnership, fronts the new 6.2-acre Tongva Park and was completed in 2014.
Celadon at 9th & Broadway
Celadon at 9th & Broadway is a mixed-use project that provides 250 units of affordable housing plus commercial space in downtown San Diego. The affordable units are targeted to a range of age groups and housing needs. It is notable for its complex arrangement for financing the affordable units, since it was the first project in the state of California to stack two low-income housing tax credit (LIHTC) allocations into one building. Celadon also incorporates a number of sustainable features, including a rooftop eco-garden, solar photovoltaic walls, and a solar hot water system. The project opened for occupancy in May 2015 and is certified Gold under the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) program.
Atlantic Beach Country Club
The Atlantic Beach Country Club rejuvenated what had been a faded 18-hole golf course in the small town of Atlantic Beach, Florida, adjacent to Jacksonville. Adding 178 new single-family houses on 50 acres in the center of the 170-acre property financed entirely new facilities for the country club, reviving the club’s flagging membership. The new country club includes a redesigned 18-hole golf course and an expanded clubhouse with additional amenities. The new houses, ranging from 2,000 to 4,000 square feet, were built by both production and custom builders in a mix of regional architectural styles. The town supplied reclaimed water for irrigation in exchange for an open-space easement over the golf course.
Second Street
The nearly three-mile-long Second Street corridor, which extends from the center of downtown Rochester to West Circle Drive, is the economic hub of the city, with nearly half of all the city’s jobs within walking distance, including the prestigious Mayo Health Clinic. Before the completion of a redevelopment project along Second Street in 2015, the economic energy stopped at the U.S. Highway 52 bridge. West of the bridge, Second Street consisted of seven lanes (including two parking lanes and a center turn lane), and 22,000 high-speed vehicles per day traveled it in peak locations. The way the corridor was designed limited pedestrian and bicycle mobility and contributed to underutilized on-street parking (because of the risks associated with parking adjacent to high-speed vehicles).
To reduce the area’s automobile-centric nature and to improve its economic trajectory, the city and area stakeholders completed an inclusive redevelopment project in 2015. That project revitalized about 1.5 miles of Second Street between U.S. Highway 52 and West Circle Drive. Later rebranded as the Uptown District, the area has since assumed a new identity as a pedestrian-oriented neighborhood that is primed for economic growth.
Edgewater Drive
Streets have played a major role in the development of College Park, a neighborhood adjacent to downtown Orlando, Florida. The neighborhood’s Princeton, Harvard, and Yale streets influenced the naming of the city’s first subdivision and eventually the naming of the neighborhood.
Beginning in 1999, local stakeholders gave College Park a new identity by transforming Edgewater Drive, its main street. The four-lane road was extremely unsafe; it carried more than 20,000 speeding motorists per day, and it experienced crashes nearly every three days and injuries every nine days. Because the road also contained limited space for sidewalks, bike lanes, and streetscape, the city of Orlando implemented a lane reduction—or “road diet”—to regain space for pedestrians and bicyclists. Since the project’s implementation, Edgewater Drive has become a noticeably healthier and safer street. Traffic speeds and the number of crashes have been reduced, and both the volume and satisfaction of pedestrians and bicyclists have increased.