Developer sets benchmark for change in Milwaukee

When the founders of North Avenue Community Development Corporation in Milwaukee wanted to see change in their economically-challenged North Avenue neighborhood, they realized it was up to them to solve it entrepreneurially and build the change they wanted to see.

Thus, they developed the $4.8 million Toussaint Square, a new three-story building integreted with a renovated mixed-use building providing 24 affordable homes to retain local residents who wanted to stay in the neighborhood as their incomes rose, and 15,000 s.f. of office/retail and live/work space (scaled smaller to be more financially attainable) to retain local, independent businesses.

The project's moniker also has historical merit, named after Francois-Dominique Toussaint L'Ouverture, who helped lead the first successful slave rebellion in the western hemisphere 200 years ago that established Haiti as a free, black republic.

Urban Splash - hard to imagine a cooler developer

The cities in northwest England, namely Liverpool and Manchester, weren't transitioning very gracefully from the industrial era. Enter Tom Bloxham, founder of the wildly progressive development company, Urban Splash in 1993, who all but single-handedly invented loft living in those cities. The unique story of how Urban Splash came to be, however, is a pretty typical one for the kind of in-demand developer he is today... he had no initial intention whatsoever of being a developer.

Tom began selling records at a Manchester market and confessed he was so bad at it that he started selling the posters that came with them instead. As his business grew, he found a 6000 s.f. space that was too large, so he sublet the rest of it to young creative entrepreneurs (similar to the Affinity Lab story), which once again started making more money than his current business.

With a new business model, he proceeded to buy a dilapidated building in Liverpool and converted into the 'first modern bar in the city'. This is also when he met architect Jonathan Falkingham who he would then establish Urban Splash with, focusing on creative urban redevelopments targeting young first-time buyers. His company now employs over 200 people.

His projects back up his words, "My belief is that the only good business deal is one where everybody gets something out of it. I'm not interested in screwing anybody over. A good deal for me is where we get something out of it, the purchaser gets something out of it, the local authority gets something out of it and everyone's a winner. They're the deals you come back to and do time and time again."

An interview with the Syracuse artist/musician developer

An interview with Rick Destito, the young, progressive developer of the artist/musician building profiled yesterday...

Why are you dedicating this building to artists and musician tenants?
"In my travels around the country, over and over again the most vibrant, exciting, and interesting places I have been were consumed with arts and music. It's that feeling of creativity and ideas, that energy that comes from it all. It's something we didn't have much of back home in Syracuse in a concentrated area.
That energy and creativity will start in this building and work out into the larger community. It's more than just this property, it's also about building up the surrounding community and creating that all important atmosphere for people who want to live, work and play in the same area."

Can you do that and still make money?
"To do so, you need a healthy mix of things. Aside from just renting studios and live/work space, I'm looking at a few different business opportunities that would fit in well with the overall vision of the property. I do think certain things that generate income for the building will supplement other things that need to be more affordable, even long-term renting vs. short-term can have a huge difference in price on the something.
I could probably do all of one thing that would look great on paper or sell condos to be in and out quick which sounds great in the "short term". However, what you won't have is that crucial mix of people that makes the property sustainable for years to come. A building with character and great atmosphere may generate money at a slower pace in the short term, but I believe it will yield much more in the long term. Same concept for building a sustainable community."

What kind of interest are you getting from the artist/musician community?
"Overwhelming support. Currently in Syracuse there seems to be plenty of artists and musicians, but almost no art or music studio spaces available. From what I've heard in talking with other people involved with the arts in the community, it takes about a year and a half to two years to be able to get into a gallery to show your work. There are also no medium-size music venues, you just have the bars or you have the really large venues. Also, in Syracuse studies show a need for approximately 300 live/work units of which there are almost zero currently.
I'm not just renovating a building - I know that for my place to do well, the places around me have to do well. For this reason I'm very involved in things going on in the community, such as Syracuse Public Arts and Tomorrows Neighborhoods Today to make the entire area better and get people to really start utilizing everything and every property around us in the area. Some of the things we've done this year so far are the passing of Syracuse's first Public Art Ordinance and the city's first sculpture park, Lipe Art Park which is just down the street from the building."

Clipper Mill - From industrial mill to contemporary village

What to do with an abandoned mill founded in 1853 that used to employ thousands to manufacture sails for clipper ships? Why, turns out it may provide the framework for what looks to be the most compelling, one-of-a-kind, modern new urban villages in Baltimore, MD.

Clipper Mill will feature 168 residences, 46,500 s.f. of office space, and 51,000 s.f. of creative light industry and studio space, as well as dining, grocery and athletic amenities. On top of that, it's located right at a light rail station that heads straight into downtown.

Clipper Mill, however, is one of those places that you have to visit to truly appreciate, because there's nothing ordinary about any of its spaces - in fact, they're often extraordinary. Within (as in inside of) two of the largest historic industrial buildings, homes will be built facing a common courtyard. Alongside will be a meandering swimming pool built among ruins that looks straight out of ancient Rome. The newer apartment building and townhouses are rather surprisingly conventional however - not much inspiration rubbed off on them.

Head over to the CoolTown members' forum to check out the 'under construction' photos.

Lofty new neighborhood rises in Oakland

If you're an entrepreneur, artist and/or associated with the creative class in the SF Bay Area, you may want to check out the neighborhood surrounding the Jack London Square waterfront. The area has already attracted a number of architects, consultants and media-related firms.

Oakland’s Mayor Jerry Brown and former presidential candidate was a pioneer in helping transform what was a dormant, underutilized industrial district (much of it centered on produce) into an emerging hip destination. After moving to the area in 1992, he worked with his neighbors to turn abandoned warehouse buildings into live/works and lofts. When he became Mayor in 1998, he committed to bringing 10,000 new residents to downtown Oakland, with the Jack London Square neighborhood being a focal point.

Jack London Square itself is an entertainment destination, with a number of independent restaurants and bars, shops, a movie theater and a waterfront plaza for major events.

NY Times - 'Trading the Car for the Train'

Not a surprising headline yesterday coming from the NY Times, unless... the story is about a project in Los Angeles!

That's right, Pasadena is getting a 347-apartment transit-oriented development, bisected by and situated above L.A.'s light rail line. The award-winning new neighborhood, Del Mar Station. It makes sense, since studies show U.S. 'households in transit zones own an average of 0.9 cars, compared with 1.6 cars for metropolitan regions' and 'California state residents living near transit stations were five times as likely to commute by transit than the average resident worker in the same city.'

You can read more about its excellent urban design attributes here, planned by one of the top planning firms in the country, Moule & Polyzoides. It's signature feature? A piazza surrounded by housing and retail on three sides, with a restored historic train station on the fourth side. Expect myriad postcards of it, as well as social gatherings and spontaneous meet-ups.

Roanoke plans for an extraordinary pedestrian street

The timing is right for pedestrian streets. While just a vision for now, this could become a built reality if Roanoke, Virginia's leaders have their way...

"It's stunningly cool," said Ford Kemper, a lawyer and board member of Downtown Roanoke Inc., a tax-supported entity that oversees the city's historic center.

Regarding the proposals... "They're right on. They're revolutionary, they're bright, they're fresh... They could completely change the face of our downtown," said Downtown Roanoke Inc. Market Manager Hope Hollingsworth.

What is it? It's a truly pedestrian experience that emphasizes people and the restaurants and stores on it, planned by DPZ & Company, often mentioned on this website. Some of the features:

- Outside balconies on buildings, like in New Orleans, to bring people to the street on more than just the ground level.
- Moving the farmers market stalls outside to the center of the street rather than inside buildings.
- Moving the existing enclosed food court restaurants to face their seating outside.
- Adding a movie theater to draw temporary crowds to the street, and downtown housing to draw permanent crowds.

You can read the news article here, and see images here.

'Upper Rock District' finally gets the green light

It shows you have to be patient to be progressive. A year and three months since we first introduced you to Upper Rock District, a proposed 'CoolTown' in Rockville, MD, it received formal city approval to be built. More here.

Municipalities take note, not many developers are this patient, and serious institutional investors (like this one) will not wait more than six months, and certainly not fifteen. Even then, the developers did not expect approvals to take this long, as it seems the city leadership wasn't as keen on the influx of loft housing over senior housing - seniors have a large say in elections in Rockville, shall we say. The other negative? With every year that goes by, it's the homebuyers that have to pay for the interest costs caused by the delay. In time, what was once affordable could be anything but.

Here's our original story on Upper Rock, followed by the proposed plan here. Gotta love those open plan two-story buildings designed especially for entrepreneurs (see front and center of rendering.) We look forward to showing you photos of the completed project sometime next year

Are there any other Upper Rock Districts you're aware of? Speak your mind below...

Much of the plan for San Francisco's Treasure Island, a 403-acre man-made former military base below the Bay Bridge, is already laid out. However, what if the progressive idea of the beta community; future residents and tenants visioning their own neighborhood into reality in partnership with developers and investors, was in full motion today?

We'd perhaps get the proposal for Treasure Island similar to that of urban design students at UC Berkeley's College of Environmental Design - 20,000 people in a truly walkable, urban environment, car-free, entertainment and recreation rich, with an ecological infrastructure. More details here. A contemporary mini-Venice. There's no doubt that the market is there (half the population of Manhattan doesn't even have a driver's license, even less around the world) - it's just a matter of time.

Would you live in a place like this? Speak your mind below...

A CoolTown block in Ohio (Part 2)

Continuing Ben Ezinga's story from yesterday:

"It's a sustainably-designed mixed-use building with some great retail and restaurants lined up for the first floor, and 49 mixed-income condos and apartments for rent, a mixture of live/work and loft-style.

Oberlin's a funny little creative, artsy college town with a lot of great history, architecture, and ideas, way out in the middle of northeast Ohio farmland. Every year it's refilled with bright, idealistic young people, but until recently very few of us have seemed to stay here after graduating to apply what we'd learned. There's some real progress starting to be made here, and it's fascinating to be involved in the organic emergence of a cooltown while reading about how other cities are trying to plan to become cooltowns."