New urbanist project construction starts soar

Neighborhood-scale projects completed or under construction rose by 37 percent in 2001, turning new urbanist plans into reality at an unprecedented rate.

So many new urbanist projects have slowly worked their way through the planning pipeline that a burst of activity was inevitable, especially in the prolonged period of economic growth that now appears to have ended. Such a high rate of growth is not likely to be sustained in the coming years.

However, the jump in projects under construction may also represent a growing confidence in the economic viability of the New Urbanism in its diverse incarnations. The fact that the public sector increasingly supports this kind of development has been crucial to make lenders and developers more comfortable with engaging in mixed-use projects.
Local zoning laws remain barriers in most places, although developments in the past year signal that far-reaching change may occur in this area. Wisconsin is implementing a traditional neighborhood development (TND) model code, which must be adopted in some form by all larger municipalities in the state. Negotiations are continuing to make the “Smart Code,” developed by Duany Plater-Zyberk & Co., easily available to town and city government across the country. These are not magic bullets, but they represent new avenues for local governments to obtain the tools needed to push development in a new direction, rather that just reacting to proposals from the private sector.

This year, New Urban News’ survey found 213 neighborhood-scale projects (15 acres or above) completed or in some stage of construction, a 37 percent increase over the 155 identified in 2000. This represents a substantial jump from 1999, when the number increased by 28 percent, and 2000, when New Urban News recorded a 25 percent rise. Counting the projects still in the planning phase, the total number of new urbanist (NU) projects has climbed to 375, an increase of 22.5 percent over 2000. The full roster of projects includes 81 plans not previously listed.

The list of neighborhood-scale projects is only a partial measurement of the overall impact of the New Urbanism in the US today. Hundreds of smaller projects, ranging from single mixed-use buildings to infill townhouses and main street revitalizations are going forward in the nation’s cities. Moreover, NU designers are increasingly hired to forge new visions for urban and suburban commercial corridors.

Regional distribution
The New Urbanism initially took hold in rapidly growing states such as Florida and California, where the sprawling post-World War II development patterns are particularly dominant, and where developers saw a market ready for experimentation. The movement has since spread to include projects under construction and in planning in 39 states. This year, the New Urbanism has made its first foray into the sparsely populated Western states of Nebraska, Wyoming, and Montana with three neighborhoods in planning by Lennertz Coyle & Associates of Portland, Oregon. These projects will further test new urbanists’ ability to change development patterns in a relatively conservative real estate climate. As architect Bill Lennertz told the Lincoln Journal Star in Nebraska, building Lincoln Urban Village is “a little bit like trying to transplant a foreign object into a body.” The body’s first reaction is to reject it.

In other regions, however, NU neighborhoods are no longer a novelty. In the regional distribution of projects, the Southeast accounts for nearly 43 percent of the total number of projects under construction. With a strong housing market fueled by immigration, retirement, and relocation, Florida continues as the region’s center of activity with 30 projects complete or under construction, as well as 18 more in planning. New Urbanism has also found fertile ground in North Carolina, where 21 out of a total of 35 projects are under construction.

The three Pacific coast states include approximately 17 percent of NU projects under construction, with the greatest concentration in California where 20 projects are being built. The Midwest contains approximately 12.5 percent of projects, followed by the Mid-Atlantic region with 10.5 percent. A little more than 8 percent of projects are located in the Southwest (Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico), and another 8 percent are located the mountain states Colorado, Utah, Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, and Nevada. The bulk of projects in this region are being built in Colorado, where 15 NU communities and neighborhoods are under construction. The remaining 1 percent of projects is located in New England.

The many faces of NU
The stereotypical conception of the NU project as nostalgia-tinged, neotraditional “village” with porches and picket fences lives on in the media and in the public consciousness. Today that image is further from reality than ever.

The real strength of the NU trend lies less in the number of projects than in their diversity. Shopping malls are being torn down to make way for dense town centers. Abandoned military bases and obsolete airports are about to be turned into neighborhoods in Florida, Texas, South Carolina, and Colorado. Underused and vacant land in the heart of St. Paul, Minnesota, is being redeveloped with apartments, townhomes, and commercial buildings. Parking lots surrounding commuter rail stations will give way to housing, stores, and restaurants. Conventional subdivisions are adding mixed-use town centers.

Projects fall into four main categories: 1) Greenfield projects built on undeveloped land. 2) Infill projects connected to existing urbanism. 3) Greyfield projects built on land previously occupied by malls, airports, military bases and the like. 4) Brownfield projects built on former industrial sites after environmental cleanup. The 2001 list of projects under construction includes 133 greenfield, 57 infill, 16 greyfield, and 7 brownfield projects.

However, while greenfield developments continue to make up a majority of NU projects, indications are that a shift is underway. The projects that began construction in the past year reveal an unprecedented balance between greenfield and infill projects. Of the 66 projects new to the list, more than half (34) are infill, greyfield, or brownfield developments (see piecharts, right).

Diverse practitioners
Just as an unprecedented variety of plans are proposed and built, the field of active practitioners is also growing more diverse. For example, Parsons Brinckerhoff, one of the world’s largest engineering and infrastructure firms, is increasingly employing NU principles in its work. This includes streetscape design, planning for new transit systems, zoning codes, revitalization projects, and transit-oriented neighborhood developments. At the same time many new and smaller firms are dedicating themselves to plan according to NU principles.

A small group of well-established NU planning firms with regional and national reach — Calthorpe Associates, Dover Kohl & Partners, Duany Plater-Zyberk & Co., Lennertz Coyle & Associates, Looney Ricks Kiss, Moule & Polyzoides, Torti Gallas/CHK, and Urban Design Associates — continue to be very active. But while they were responsible for a full two thirds of projects in 1996, they now are involved in only half of the neighborhood-scale projects.

No slump in sales
New Urban News’ survey measures the unofficial temperature of sales activity in NU projects, and the diagnosis is clear: the slump in the national economy has yet to hit the housing market, and NU communities are holding up their end. The majority of developers report strong sales, at least through the summer of 2001. That represents a continuation from earlier in 2001, when New Urban News’ survey of a group of projects revealed a clear upswing in sales.

While the storm of attention lavished on Celebration in Florida has calmed, the new town has had its biggest sales year so far in fiscal year 2001. At the end of September, a record 325 homes had been sold, according to Marilyn Waters of the Celebration Company. The community is now home to approximately 5,000 people. Waters notes that an increasing number of buyers live in the immediate region, suggesting that the NU concept is winning acceptance as a mainstream alternative to conventional subdivisions.

Other developers report a greater sophistication among home buyers — people are beginning to get better educated about the New Urbanism. Tom Mateya of Waterford Development, the developer of Belmont Greene in Loudoun County, Virginia, expresses surprise at the level of education among homebuyers. “They deliberately seek out TNDs,” he says, and buyers know what kind of amenities they are looking for.

Retail timing
A few significant retail centers have opened their doors in established NU communities in the past year, notably in King Farm, Maryland; in Abacoa, Florida; and in River Ranch, Louisiana; but overall the growth spurt in new retail seems to have abated. In many projects, developers are still waiting for more homes to be completed before they venture into the more unpredictable retail sector.

One exception is the Town Commons in Howell, Michigan. In this 61-acre greenfield development, the planned 13,000 square feet of retail space has been completed, even as only 10 homes are under construction. Three floors of apartments top the retail space. Developer DeMaria Building Co. regards the retail amenities as an important driver of lots sales, says Geof Greeneisen. “It took more equity up front to build the retail, but it’s a matter of putting our money where our mouth is.” If a NU project promises a different model with a mix of uses, then the developers have to show from the beginning that they are serious, he adds.

Among the developments that broke ground in 2001 are several high-density urban projects with the potential to become regional, in some cases national, models. In Midtown Atlanta, for example, new streets and other infrastructure are going in on the former steel plant site that will house Atlantic Station, a project encompassing 12 million square feet of residences, retail, and offices. Lindbergh Center, Atlanta’s first major transit-oriented development, is under construction around a suburban commuter rail station.

In Nashville, the high-density, mixed-use Gulch Neighborhood has broken ground on a 65-acre former railyard. The plan by Looney Ricks Kiss calls for more than 1,800 residential units, a hotel, and more than a million square feet of retail. Nashville has become a city to watch since prominent new urbanist planner Rick Bernhardt became director of planning late last year.

Another ambitious infill project by Looney Ricks Kiss has broken ground in Downtown Tupelo, Mississippi. The city’s grid extends into the 50-acre site, and in addition to a mixed traditional residential neighborhood, the redevelopment includes a main street district with retail, entertainment, hotel uses, as well as a conference center and offices. The project’s developer is the Henry Turley Company.

In California, prominent new projects include Mission Bay in San Francisco, Santana Row in San Jose, and the Waterfront District in Hercules. Mission Bay occupies a former industrial waterfront site immediately south of the downtown business district. The project is one of the most multifaceted infill projects now under construction. It features a mix of residences, including a substantial affordable housing element, a new research campus for the University of California at San Francisco, 5 million square feet of office space, up to 700,000 square feet of retail, a hotel, and nearly 50 acres of new parks. The master plan for the 300 acres acres is by Johnson Fain Partners.

Santana Row is one of several major greyfield mall revitalizations to get underway in 2001. Others include CityCenter Englewood and Belmar in Denver area (see July/August 2001 issue). Santana Row, designed by Cooper Carry and developed by Federal Realty Investment Trust, will offer 1,200 residences both above retail and in freestanding townhomes and apartment buildings. The tight street and block layout and the absence of surface parking lots will distinguish Santana Row from the conventional suburban retail uses around the project.

Additional promising projects getting underway include: Townsend, an infill neighborhood in Gainesville, Florida which is the first to follow the city’s TND ordinance; Norton Commons, a greenfield project in Louisville, Kentucky, which has weathered strong opposition; Frisco Square, a high-density town center for Frisco, Texas; The Peninsula Neighborhood in Iowa City, Iowa, which has taken on the challenge of incorporating affordable housing seamlessly through the entire neighborhood; and Park Commons in St. Louis Park, Minnesota, a strip shopping center conversion which has been in planning for six years.

Minnesota infill
Elsewhere in the Twin Cities area, two significant mixed-use, infill developments are underway in downtown St. Paul, Minnesota. Since 1997, the city has had a vision for redevelopment based on a series of “urban villages” designed to create a more cohesive urban fabric on both sides of the Mississippi River. “The St. Paul on the Mississippi Development Framework” was spearheaded by Urban Strategies, a Canadian town planning firm which has designed several new urbanist communities in the Toronto region. Two projects, the Northeast Quadrant and West Side Flats, are direct outgrowths of the framework plan and have begun construction.

Farthest along is the Northeast Quadrant — the first phase, currently nearing completion, includes 152 apartments and condominiums, and future phases could add another 450 units of housing to downtown St. Paul. The development is made up of new four- and five-story buildings mixed in with rehabilitation of old industrial buildings. The City Council recently approved the creation of a tax-increment financing district for the second phase of the Northeast Quadrant. Designed by the now disbanded Town Planning Collaborative (TPC), the project is being developed by local developers The Lander Group and Sherman Associates.

Former principals from TPC are also behind West Side Flats, a 45-acre project on the Mississippi River designed by HGA Architects. The master plan incorporates a riverfront esplanade and a linear greenway into a rectangular street grid with a mix of main street buildings, corporate offices, urban row houses, live/work buildings, and courtyard apartment buildings. Not only will the site accommodate 1,330 new housing units, it also reuses a prime site in an area that has suffered from disinvestment and which includes several acres of vacant land.

The St. Paul projects provides evidence that large-scale vision plans can make a real difference when the political will is present. “It’s been a long haul,” says Don Johnson of the Lander Group, “but we’ve had a very productive collaboration with the city, and the public sector involvement has been crucial to get the neighborhood going.”