Here comes the neighborhood: why urban mixed-use development works - perspective - housing in retail and office space

Residential Architect, March, 2003 by Julie Eizenberg

Our 20th century cities were shaped with the best of intentions. The idea, I guess, was that by isolating the components of the city and approaching each in terms of streamlined processes and functional determinants, you would make cities more pleasant places to live and work. Sure, and TV dinners were supposed to make home life more enjoyable. Both notions were based on an abstracted and narrow view of daily life.

City planners focused on developing separate, specialized areas for working, living, and shopping, while also moving traffic more efficiently among those areas. The connection and the orientation was vehicular time and space. Architects were (and often still are) expected to stick to one of those specialties.

You know the story: "So, Julie, what building type do you work in? ... Oh, I'm sorry, we're looking for a firm that specializes in office buildings." Compartmentalizing architects' work continues to inhibit change by discouraging the questioning of norms and favoring conventional thinking.

city comeback

As early as 1961, Jane Jacobs talked about the value of mixing housing with retail and office space, as was the case in her New York City neighborhood, Greenwich Village. She spoke of the pleasure of daily living in this context, of the constant interaction and sense of community. I would love to think that she alone inspired the re-evaluation of this country's many abandoned city cores, but I doubt it. I think the initial revitalization also was motivated by efficiency and utility. Many looked at the empty buildings in inner cities and saw a waste of space and resources. At the same time, urban change seemed to be accelerating too rapidly for comfort, which precipitated an interest in preserving the past. But the psychological, regulatory, and economic boundaries that inhibited investment in revitalization were huge, and change was slow.

The artist loft phenomenon in the early '80s helped build confidence in city redevelopment. Artists acted as urban pioneers, willing to take a risk to achieve the lifestyle they sought. In turn, cities eased building code requirements for habitable dwellings directed at artists, and this encouraged loft conversions. In many cities, housing took over abandoned warehouse space, and retail and offices followed. It became clear that many people wanted urban neighborhood lifestyles and that money could be made in addressing this trend.

Around the same time, another wave of change happened. To help alleviate housing shortages, many cities updated zoning codes to allow housing over commercial space in commercial zones. However, in some cities, such as Los Angeles, loans for such projects were not straightforward. Because lenders were fragmented by building type, putting together a comprehensive loan for a mixed-use project was difficult.

Meanwhile, the exponential growth in personal computer ownership and Internet access removed the last argument for designing cities according to segregated building uses and "functional efficiency." People could now live and work from anywhere.

sense of place

So finally we arrived at the real, key question that should inform how cities develop: How do we want to live? Well, Starbucks settled that question. Judging from its popularity, a whole lot of people clearly like the quality of daily life Jacobs wrote about. Starbucks markets itself as a "third place," the term coined by the sociologist Ray Oldenburg. Where the first place is a home and the second place is a workspace, the third place is a community living room where one can do homework, hang out, or have a business meeting. Old city centers with good walking streets have the infrastructure to support a mix of all three "places."

This urban paradigm is beginning to transcend its roots, as cities build people-friendly, mixed-use neighborhoods from scratch. Brea, Calif., deep in suburban Orange County, had no old downtown to revitalize. The city brought in developers to build a new, mixed-use one that included movie theaters, retail, and parking adjacent to medium-density housing.

Our project there consisted of 32 relatively affordable, loft-style apartments above 12,300 square feet of community retail space, with parking relegated to an adjacent public parking structure. Before construction was even finished, the apartments went on the rental market one Saturday in the summer of 1999. All but two leased that afternoon.

new york story

In Lower Manhattan, the spatial infrastructure of pedestrian-oriented streets and mixed-use buildings had been weakened by insular, mono-culture developments such as the World Trade Center and the West Street auto artery. With the Trade Center gone and redevelopment proposals on the table, The New York Times Magazine asked a group of architects--including my partner, Hank Koning, and myself--to devise plans for a more neighborhood-friendly development. Hank and I were asked to contribute a vision for a community center at the north end of the downtown site.

Talks at community meetings revealed that residents desired more access to commercial enterprises. So we designed a mixed-use building, with upper floors containing seniors housing, centers for seniors and teens, community service and conference spaces, public gyms, and a pool. The ground floor holds a bookstore, childcare center, and cafe. A big atrium links all of these amenities, facilitating social interactions. Shapes, forms, sequence, and texture create a feeling of well-being, not just of institutional services. These things count.