Dickens Heath Village Centre is a purpose-built mixed-use village in the heart of the Solihull countryside that, at completion, will comprise approximately 500 luxury apartments and townhouses, 15,000 square meters (161,459 sq. ft.) of commercial space, a library, a medical center, and a nature reserve. Parkridge Holdings is developing the planned community on greenbelt land previously owned by the local authority. Although a relatively small development, the project provides the missing piece in the jigsaw of an urban extension—it introduces an economically, environmentally, and socially sustainable heart to a new community that is urban rather than suburban but still sensitive to its rural setting.
In 1998, city of San Diego voters overwhelmingly approved a historic memorandum of understanding for a new Major League ballpark and a major redevelopment effort that has transformed one of the city’s most blighted areas—East Village—into one of downtown’s fastest-growing and most popular neighborhoods. “This major redevelopment project has totally transformed the entire character of a formerly troubled neighborhood,” states Centre City Development Corporation (CCDC) president Nancy Graham. “Now, roughly 3 million people per year visit this part of downtown San Diego and it has come alive with residential, retail, and commercial development. An exciting and vibrant energy exists on the streets today that hadn’t been there before.” The public/private partnership that created this neighborhood offers a model of how public investment can catalyze large-scale private redevelopment efforts.
Designed to resemble a downtown that has evolved over time, Victoria Gardens is a new, pedestrian-oriented town center located 50 miles (80.5 kilometers) east of downtown Los Angeles in Rancho Cucamonga, a town at the heart of California’s Inland Empire. This project–the result of a public/private partnership among Forest City, the Lewis Group of Companies, and the Rancho Cucamonga Redevelopment Agency–comprises department stores, shops, restaurants, a movie theater, a performing arts center, a library, and 55,000 square feet (5,100 square meters) of office space. Intended to serve as a new downtown for Rancho Cucamonga, the completed town center will also include a mix of 500 residential units.
Providing a range of residential options–including high-end residences, social (affordable) housing, and housing for seniors–Meander is a 17,270-square-meter (185,894-square-foot) mixed-use development located in Amsterdam’s Stadsdeel Westerpark along a canal known as Kostverlorenvaart. The result of a public/private partnership, the 278-unit project also includes a restaurant, a gym, a public elementary school, and a public library. The site plan integrates the project’s many uses into one complex while paying homage to the site’s maritime location and its industrial past. The building’s layout curves inward along the canal, allowing more housing units to have views of the water, as well as the formation of two pedestrian streets on the canal side and a private courtyard facing the existing housing.
The San Elijo Hills Town Center is the 70-acre (28.3-hectare), mixed-use core of San Elijo Hills, a 1,920-acre (777-hectare) master-planned development located in San Marcos, about 40 miles (64.4 kilometers) north of San Diego. The Town Center includes a public school with an attached public library, live/work units, condominiums, and townhouses, and when complete will also contain a church, additional condominiums located above 65,000 square feet (6,038.5 square meters) of retail space, and a 49,000-square-foot (4,552-square-meter) grocery store. All of these uses are oriented around a town square. Designed by Calthorpe Associates and developed by HomeFed Corporation, the San Elijo Hills Town Center relies on sets of one-way roads (called couplets) instead of standard arterials to circulate traffic.
Hidden Springs is a 1,844-acre (746-hectare) master-planned community nestled in the foothills of the Boise Front, ten miles (16 kilometers) northwest of Boise, Idaho’s largest city and state capital. The project’s environmentally sensitive plan includes up to 1,034 acres (418 hectares) of potentially developable land and 810 acres (328 hectares) of protected conservation land. Two phases of residential development are currently under construction, upon completion, the community will consist of up to 1,035 homes divided into several neighborhoods. Currently, the Town Center features 8,500 square feet (790 square meters) of retail space located near the entrance to the community and includes a cafe©, a general store, a post office, a library, a preschool, an apartment, and professional offices. Hidden Springs has won several awards, including “Best Smart Growth Community” for the year 2000 by Professional Builder magazine and the National Association of Home Builders.
A public/private partnership to develop a new school and a multifamily building containing 211 rental units on school land. The overcrowded and deteriorated James F. Oyster Bilingual Elementary School was replaced with a new building constructed on an urban infill site in the Woodley Park neighborhood of Washington, D.C., that was designed to be highly efficient and accommodate 50 additional students. The 47,158-square-foot (4,381-square-meter) state-of-the-art facility includes a computer lab, a library, a gym, a 33-car garage for school staff, and office space for after-school programs. Henry Adams House is a luxury apartment building that features a concierge service, a fitness center, a business center, a party room, and underground parking.
A six-block urban mixed-use infill project anchored by restaurants, shops, for-sale and rental multifamily housing, parking, and two public buildings (a regional library and a business innovation and arts center), Rockville Town Square is the first phase in the development of a 60-acre (24-ha) town center master plan. Located in an inner-ring, outside-the-Beltway suburb of Washington, D.C, on the Red Line of the city’s Metrorail mass transit system, the pedestrian-oriented project features the two public buildings and four mid-rise residential structures atop ground-floor retail space, all surrounding a town square. The result of a public/private partnership among local developers, the city of Rockville, and Montgomery County, Rockville Town Square has created an urban live/work/play environment in an established suburban community.
The Burnham Building reclaims a vacant, but historically important structure to provide affordable housing and a new site for the town’s public library. The one-acre site is located directly across Main Street from the railroad station that serves the Hudson River village of Irvington, the locale for Washington Irving’s Tales of the Sleepy Hollow. The project engaged a number of green ù building techniques, one of which is accomplished by providing housing for workers close to employment or public transit. Affordable Housing Development Corporation (AHDC) and the village of Irvington cooperated to provide a financially successful project for the former, and community-enhancing benefits for the latter. The developer gained federal tax credits at a substantial discount, an appropriate development fee, and annual cash flow, and the community gained a much-needed public library in a central location, and 22 units of affordable housing in a constricted market.
Fruitvale Village I is a four-acre (1.62-hectare) mixed-use, mixed-income, transit-oriented development located next to the Fruitvale Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) station in the Fruitvale district about 4.5 miles (7.2 kilometers) south of downtown Oakland, California. It is the central core of Fruitvale Village, a 19-acre (7.7-hectare) area that includes a new housing development for seniors, extensive facade and street improvements, and both surface and structured parking spaces. Developed by the Unity Council, a local nonprofit community development corporation, the project mixes 37 market-rate loft-style apartments with ten affordable units, office space, more than 20 retail stores, a seniors’ center, a Head Start child development center, a city of Oakland public library, and a health clinic that provides linguistically and culturally appropriate care to patients regardless of their ability to pay.
