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.
In just a dozen years, Daniel Island, a 4,000-acre (1,619 ha) site at the northern end of Charleston Harbor has been transformed from a private hunting retreat to a master-planned community. In the process, it has become an important center for the region and a national model for smart growth.
At the project’s inception in 1995, the region’s newly opened I-526 beltway passed through Daniel Island, presenting a unique suburban infill opportunity that would enable the city to grow without contributing to sprawl. On its way to becoming a small town—the community is 50 percent complete as of early 2007—Daniel Island already has nearly 2,000 residences and a town center with shops, restaurants, and other conveniences; extensive recreation amenities; and many businesses, schools, churches, and two professional sports facilities. At buildout in 2015, the community is expected to contain approximately 6,000 residences and 3 million square feet (278,709 m2) of commercial space.
The 62-hectare (153-ac) Mandurah Ocean Marina is a waterfront hub and major tourist destination adjacent to the central business district of Mandurah, a city located about an hour’s drive south of Perth, Western Australia’s capital. With a thriving tourism industry, Mandurah is one of the fastest-growing urban areas in Australia.
Fulfilling a 30-year community vision for a world-class boating and tourism facility, Mandurah Ocean Marina overcame major stakeholder differences, enabling positive outcomes for all involved: adjoining landowners, clubs, and residents. The development was created on a strip of underused — and in some areas derelict — oceanfront land. Composed of North Harbour and South Harbour, linked by a pedestrian bridge, the development offers a mix of residences, hotels, shops, restaurants and cafés, entertainment venues, mooring facilities for large and small boats, and activities for boating and fishing enthusiasts. Specifically, it includes 2,500 square meters (26,900 sf) of office space; 16,000 square meters (172,200 sf) of retail, restaurant, and entertainment facilities; a 24,000-square-meter (258,300- sf) marina; 281 hotel rooms; 410 residences; and 1,700 parking spaces.
A scenic, view-oriented, environmentally responsible community that strikes a careful balance between preserving natural resources and providing much-needed housing, Ladera Ranch, which was begun in 1998 and substantially completed in 2006, is a 4,000-acre (1,619 ha) master-planned community carved out of southern California’s vast Rancho Mission Viejo. More than 1,600 acres (648 ha) of sensitive habitat are being preserved as open space under a perpetual land trust, leaving about 2,400 acres (971 ha) to be developed with 8,100 homes and 1 million square feet (92,900 m2) of commercial space in six villages and three multiuse districts, with a relatively high average density—for production housing on a greenfield site—of 7.1 units per acre (17.5/ha). A central biofiltration system collects and naturally treats low-flow stormwater runoff, while a centralized computer system tightly controls irrigation, reducing water use. The community’s final two villages, Terramor and Covenant Hills, have incorporated a wide range of pioneering green building techniques, making Ladera Ranch one of the largest concentrations of green -designed and -constructed homes in the United States and the nation’s largest solar community.
Private corporations stepped up to commit both major funds and needed leadership to the decaying Over-the-Rhine neighborhood adjoining downtown Cincinnati, Ohio. A new can-do organization was created, and a comprehensive, action-oriented strategy was developed that recognized the importance of the cultural amenities of downtown. Major locally based companies joined to create a nonprofit development corporation to work along with the city to plan and finance the revitalization of the neighborhood. Fountain Square, a Cincinnati landmark, was restored, and the neighborhood is alive with new housing and new jobs. By investing across the neighborhood—from homeless shelters to historic cultural amenities, as well as new housing, hotels, and offices—Over-the-Rhine became a national model of public/private leadership.
The Ecovillage at Currumbin is an innovative 110-hectare (272 ac), 144-unit residential community that showcases best practices in ecologically sustainable residential development. Conceived and implemented with minimal resources by a small group of individuals who wished to inspire improved practices in land development, the project is being developed on degraded farmland on the exurban fringe of Gold Coast City, a major resort city on Queensland’s Pacific Ocean coast. The project site is seven minutes from the shore. The developer, Landmatters Currumbin Valley Property Ltd., has rehabilitated the site and is protecting its environmental integrity and biodiversity by preserving 50 percent of it as an environmental reserve, netting 80 percent of the property as open space.
When Hurricane Paulina swept inland in October 1997, one of the hardest-hit locales was Acapulco. The all-important tourism industry was devastated for about two weeks, while the suffering experienced by the people who serviced that industry—people who lived inland in makeshift squatter housing built on hillsides, riversides, and other marginal land—lasted for months thereafter. Landslides, floods, and 290-kilometer-per-hour (180 mph) winds left 400,000 people homeless and 400 dead in Acapulco alone.
More than just an example of the successful redevelopment and integration of a closed military base with its community, The Glen is also a textbook example of how a town can build consensus among its citizens and marshal its resources to obtain the best outcome for a challenging real estate opportunity.
Harbor Town, finished in 2004 after a 15-year development period, is one of the earliest examples of a traditional neighborhood development (TND) and certainly one of the most complete. It is located on Mud Island, a 400-acre (162 ha), two-mile-long peninsula on the Memphis side of the Mississippi River. The development site was a barren vacant parcel adjacent to Memphis’s central business district, but miles away from any housing less than 100 years old. Its design—gridded streets, many terminating in small parks; wide radial boulevards; a strong pedestrian orientation; formally planned public squares; and architectural forms based on historical prototypes—embodies many of the basic principles of TND.
From 1929 through 1995, Stapleton International Airport served as Denver’s municipal airport. By 1987, plans were underway to build a new, state-of-the-art airport farther east, and they met voter approval in 1989. Meanwhile, a nonprofit group of civic and business leaders, working in partnership with the city of Denver, formed the Stapleton Development Foundation to determine the disposition of the soon-tobe-redundant Stapleton airport. In 1999, based on the foundation’s guidelines for development, the city selected Forest City Enterprises to be the master developer of the publicly owned site—located just five miles from downtown—which offered the largest urban redevelopment opportunity in Denver’s history. Today, the former airport is being reborn as a 4,700-acre (1,902 ha) master-planned community that, at buildout, will contain more than 12,000 homes, 13 million square feet (1.2 million m2) of commercial development, and more than 1,100 acres (445 ha) of parks and open space. Construction began in 2001, and the first phase, Stapleton District 1, was substantially complete in 2005. Encompassing 489 acres (198 ha), District 1 contains 2,100 residences—ranging from rental apartments to single-family homes, in many styles and price ranges—plus 200,000 square feet (18,580 m2) of office and industrial space, 120,000 square feet (11,148 m2) of retail space, more than 100 acres (40 ha) of parks and open space, and four schools. Reversing the traditional “retail follows rooftops” approach, Forest City built two retail centers in the project’s first year. Although the community is only 25 percent complete, District 1 already offers a mature, walkable, mixed-use community that is home to 4,500 residents.
