The expansion of the Scots Church in Sydney, Australia, is a project that redefines urban development conceptions of historic preservation and adaptive use. This redevelopment involved the conversion of a historic church and its air rights into a 146-unit, environmentally sensitive apartment building with commercial and office uses at its lower levels. Rechristened the “Portico” Scots Church, the resulting architectural feat integrates a neo-Gothic relic with contemporary metal-and-glass residential towers.
Jing An Kerry Centre is a high-rise mixed-use development in central Shanghai that features three office towers, a hotel at the top of one of the office towers, a multifamily residential building, and extensive streetfront and enclosed mall retail, all arranged on two adjacent blocks in the heart of the Jing An district. The project was built on 14.8 acres (6 ha) in two phases separated by a decade, and includes 465,000 square meters of building area. The project was completed in 2013.
The 1.5 million square- foot (139,355-m²) Westfield San Francisco Center, one of the nation’s largest urban shopping malls, comprises more than 170 specialty stores; two anchor department stores, Bloomingdale’s and Nordstrom; four floors of Class A office space; a gourmet marketplace; and a nine-screen cinema. The $460 million expansion project restores the 1890s-era emporium building to its original grandeur and re-creates what a century ago was San Francisco’s premier retail street.
More than 95 percent leased and occupied, Westfield San Francisco Center has generated $17.5 million in property and sales taxes for the city, created approximately 3,000 new jobs, and drawn more than 25 million visitors per year to the previously underused Market Street area. Among the 172 retailers, almost 47 percent are new to San Francisco, and preexisting San Francisco Shopping Center tenants are reporting a 10 to 15 percent increase in sales since the reopening. After an eight-year development process, Westfield San Francisco Center has become an economic engine for downtown San Francisco, creating connections with nearby Union Square, the city’s established shopping district, and Yerba Buena, a cultural and entertainment area.
The result of a partnership between nonprofit developer Mid-Peninsula Housing Coalition and the Milpitas Redevelopment Agency, DeVries Place is a housing project for seniors that has become the cornerstone of the city’s downtown revitalization effort. Situated on a historic yet underused site in the town’s center, DeVries Place provides 103 affordable rental homes for low- to very-low-income seniors. Helping restore the character of the town’s Main Street by incorporating a historic home, the apartments are within walking distance of the newly renovated municipal library and a soon-to-be-completed modern medical center.
Commissioned by its namesake corporation in 1932, the 24,121-square-meter (259,636-sf) Unilever House occupies a prominent site on the north bank of the Thames River. The redevelopment of the Grade II–listed office building achieves a balance between retaining the building’s historic façade and providing an open-air, flexible work space necessary for the global corporation’s day-to-day operations. Sustainable practices permeated all phases of the Unilever House rehabilitation, culminating in its Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method (BREEAM) “Excellent” rating and an overall 25 percent carbon emission reduction.
