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.
Buffalo Bayou Park is a 160-acre linear park stretching for 2.3 miles west of downtown Houston, along the region’s primary river. A $58 million capital campaign transformed the park from a neglected drainage ditch into a citywide showpiece. Its ten acres of trails wind past seven major public art installations, three gardens of native flora, and over four pedestrian bridges; two festival lawns, a dog park, a skate park, a nature play area, a restaurant, and an art exhibit hall draw visitors from afar. Structures were carefully sited above the path of potential floods, while park elements within the valley were designed and built to be submerged during future floods—requiring cleanup, rather than reconstruction, after the inevitable floods.
The nonprofit Buffalo Bayou Partnership orchestrated a joint effort between public sector partners and private donors: private donors funded the park, in tandem with public sector improvements to the river channel and adjacent streets, and with a plan for ongoing maintenance. The park’s completion was a milestone that launched a broader effort to reimagine the possibilities of streams across the region.
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.
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.
Kashiwa, a city with a land area of 115 square kilometers (44 sq mi) and a population of just over 400,000, is in Chiba Prefecture, northeast of Tokyo in Japan’s Kanto region. Though home to companies in food processing and other industries, as well as a professional soccer team, it is now best known as the home of Kashiwa-no-ha Smart City. Currently being developed on 273 hectares (675 ac) in northwestern Chiba Prefecture, Kashiwa-no-ha Smart City was launched in 2005 with the opening of Kashiwa-no-ha Campus Station on the Tsukuba Express train line. The land is divided into 299 parcels, to be subdivided further into blocks with interconnecting streets and pathways. Initial development is taking place in parcels 147, 148, 149, 150, and 151. This 42-hectare (104 ac) group of parcels extends outward from Kashiwa-no-ha Campus Station and encompasses the University of Tokyo Kashiwa Campus, Chiba University Kashiwa-no-ha Campus, Kashiwa-no-ha Park, and industrial areas.
Accessible from Tokyo in less than an hour by train, Kashiwa-no-ha is an area rich in natural beauty as well as the home of a concentration of academic and research institutions. Creation of the grand design for the project was from the beginning a collaborative endeavor, with Chiba Prefecture, Kashiwa, the University of Tokyo, and Chiba University involved in the planning and deliberation.
Mueller is a 700-acre redevelopment of a former airport into a health-focused master-planned community just three miles from downtown Austin, Texas. By 2020, Mueller is projected to have over 5,700 single family and multifamily units, a quarter of which will be affordable for low-income families. The Catellus Development Corporation worked with master planners ROMA Design and McCann Adams Studio to promote community health and wellness, to increase pedestrian activity, to improve air quality, and to utilize low-emission building materials.
Mueller’s various facilities and amenities are designed around the principles of social interaction, open space preservation, and active lifestyles. Tree-lined sidewalks and protected bicycle lanes provide shade and connect to a comprehensive trail system, retail, and recreational parks to encourage walking and bicycling. To promote physical fitness, Mueller provides sports facilities, playgrounds, a stretching area, and outdoor showers. A six-acre orchard and community garden provides residents with a seasonal harvest. Residents have initiated over 40 different clubs and interest groups and over 70,000 people attend large scale community events annually. The developer has facilitated social interaction these interactions through a block party at move-in and through physical design, including front porches, stoops, gardens, and alleyways in residential areas.
Sino‐Ocean Taikoo Li Chengdu is a retail-driven mixed-use project that weaves old and new, global and local, low-rise and high-rise, and religious and commercial uses into a pedestrian-centered urban fabric within a growing central Chinese city. The 18.25-acre site includes more than 300 retailers within 1.14 million square feet of retail space, a 335,000-square-foot boutique hotel with 100 rooms and 42 serviced apartments, and a 1.3 million-square-foot, 47-story office tower—all wrapped around an ancient Buddhist temple, six adaptively reused heritage buildings, and three on-site plazas. The Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) for Neighborhood Development Gold-rated community brought over 110 new retailers to the market.
Wynwood Walls is a collection of six privately owned warehouses that flank previously abandoned land used for junk storage and garbage in the urban core of Miami. In creating Wynwood Walls, the building facades were transformed into canvases and the open land area was converted to a gallery floor. The result is an outdoor “museum of the streets” by developer and placemaker Tony Goldman of Goldman Properties. It is one of the largest concentrated public displays of world-class street art, including more than 30 major works of art on giant wall canvases produced by internationally acclaimed artists from more than 15 countries. The Walls surround and encompass 1.65 acres of land that now provide multiple areas for the public to enjoy, free of charge. The Wynwood Walls is the primary catalyst behind the transformation of Wynwood into one of the hottest new creative and culturally significant neighborhoods in the United States.
The Walls now stand as the heart of the neighborhood and the destination for locals and tourists alike. After only a few years of development, Wynwood has transformed into one of the most walkable, creative, and exciting experiences in the Miami area. Wynwood has been rated one of the coolest neighborhoods with an exceptional street scene by many well-regarded sources such as Vogue, Forbes, and Cushman & Wakefield.
The Newton is an 18,599-square-foot 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 midcentury modern architecture and old-fashioned cuisine made it a local landmark for 40 years.
