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.
Hudson Park is a transit-oriented multifamily rental development—adjacent to the Yonkers Metro-North train station in the heart of Yonkers, New York—consisting of four separate buildings built in three phases over a 17-year period. The project is located on a former industrial site of eight acres located between the train station and the Hudson River. The first phase includes 266 apartments in two separate nine-story buildings, the second phase includes 294 apartments in one building with two towers of 12 and 14 stories, and the third phase includes 213 apartments in one 24-story tower. The project also encompasses 18,606 square feet of retail and office space. Hudson Park was undertaken by Collins Enterprises and involved a public/private partnership and cooperation among various groups, including the city of Yonkers, the Yonkers Industrial Development Agency, the state of New York, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, and numerous private capital sources. Hudson Park will consist of 773 rental apartments when completed in 2018.
Built on the site previously occupied by the Rand Corporation’s headquarters and more recently a surface parking lot, Tongva Park and Ken Genser Square—once collectively known as the Civic Center Parks—encompass 7.4 acres (3 ha) in the heart of Santa Monica. The completion of these parks in 2014 represents the first step toward completing a plan for the 67-acre (27 ha) civic center area, which re-envisioned the area as a vibrant neighborhood with improved linkages to the Santa Monica Pier, Palisades Park, downtown Santa Monica, and Santa Monica State Beach.
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 first-tier suburban city of Shoreline, just north of Seattle, began its ambitious redevelopment of the heavily used Aurora Avenue North corridor just three years after the city’s incorporation in 1995. Before reconstruction, Aurora Avenue North was an automobile-centric highway featuring gas stations, shopping centers, convenience stores, adult clubs, and tobacco and alcohol stores. The four-lane road had an average of 40,000 to 45,000 vehicles and 7,000 bus riders per day and one of the highest crash rates in the state, at nearly one per day and one fatality per year.
The city knew that the redevelopment of Aurora would take a long-term commitment, and for the next 18 years, Shoreline worked to address land use and safety issues and to improve the conditions of the corridor and the surrounding neighborhoods. The three-mile project was completed without debt in 2016 using a mix of 21 different funding sources, including Shoreline’s capital improvement program as well as county, state, and federal funding.
At Mariposa, an affordable housing redevelopment project located southwest of downtown Denver and redeveloped by the Denver Housing Authority, physical activity is encouraged through thoughtful design and programming choices. Located adjacent to a new light-rail station, Mariposa encourages the use of active transportation options with a bike-sharing program and supportive classes, and the community center features an attractive, interactive internal staircase and lots of programming to get people moving.
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.
Chophouse Row is the last phase of a multiyear redevelopment of a cluster of properties in the Pike-Pine neighborhood of Seattle. Completed in spring 2015, Chophouse Row is a small-scale, mixed-use project that includes 25,317 square feet of office space, 6,379 square feet of retail space, and three penthouse apartments totaling 4,795 square feet; total gross building area is 43,543 square feet. The development includes a mix of vintage and modern structures, a pedestrian alley/mews that provides a walk-through connection from 12th to 11th Avenue, and a courtyard and pedestrian plaza at the center of the block that ties together Chophouse Row and the other properties on the block.
Once a sleepy residential and industrial area in Shanghai, China, the Jinqiao precinct of the Pudong New District has gained new life through the development of the mixed-use Life Hub center. The new lifestyle center integrates culture and public art into its six hectares (14.8 acres) of land. The development centers around 98,000 square meters (1,054,863 sf) of retail space and includes 16,000 square meters (172,223 sf) of office space along with 34,515 square meters (371,516 sf) of open space. The open space largely serves as an exhibition area for public art produced by local artists who teamed with the developers to bring a strong sense of place to the Life Hub @ Jinqiao through art.
Comprised of six buildings on 4.67 acres (1.89 ha) in downtown Charlotte, North Carolina, the Levine Center for the Arts brings a cultural center to a growing central business district. The mixed use project includes three museums, a theater, an auditorium, 1,558,000 square feet (144,743 m2) of office space in Duke Energy’s corporate headquarters, and 32,035 square feet (2,976 m2) of ground-level retail space. This development represents a significant investment in Charlotte’s central business district and its public cultural offerings.