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.
Encore is a mixed-use, mixed-income redevelopment of what had been public housing just north of downtown Tampa, Florida, developed by a partnership between a housing authority and a bank-owned community development corporation. Encore currently comprises four apartment buildings with a total of 662 units of housing, 559 of which are affordable to seniors and family households with low incomes. At full buildout, the LEED for Neighborhood Development Gold–rated community will have up to 1,513 housing units, plus 180,000 square feet of office space, 200 hotel keys, and a 36,000-square-foot grocery on its 12 city blocks. Over eight years, the $425 million investment will create 5,000 construction jobs and 1,000 permanent jobs on a site that previously supported only 18 jobs. Encore uses innovative and efficient districtwide approaches for stormwater management and cooling.
Sofia Lofts is a 17-unit multifamily rental development consisting of two modern apartment buildings inserted on either side of a historic house in Golden Hill, a mixed-use neighborhood one mile east of downtown San Diego, California. The Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Platinum-certified buildings surround a generous interior courtyard landscaped to serve as a shared space for informal resident gatherings, special events, and access to parking. The family-run development company’s integrated design/build process streamlined the construction schedule, improved flexibility, and reduced costs.
A staid 1960s mall and its surroundings have been transformed into a $1 billion, 94-acre urban destination—located on two major parcels separated by an arterial street—for one of the country’s fastest-growing metropolitan areas. At North Hills, a finely balanced mix of uses surrounds parks, plazas, and walkable streets. In all, visitors will find 988,500 square feet of lifestyle and convenience retail, dining, and entertainment; 1,056,000 square feet of office space; 920 residential units; and 366 hotel rooms. The careful arrangement of uses, both vertically and horizontally, allows boutiques and fine dining to coexist at North Hills with parking garages, office space, and large-format retailers. Local developer Kane Realty began the project in 1999 by repositioning a modest retail strip and then demolishing the mall and assembling adjacent parcels for redevelopment. In the years since, the project scope has steadily evolved to encompass a broad, long-term vision of a 24-hour, high-rise urban district.
