Community Ties
Building repurposing respects the fabric of a historic neighborhood, thereby maintaining the functional and emotional ties that many long-time residents have established with their cities. The cities of Schenectady, N.Y., and Ridgefield, Conn., plan to transform community landmarks into movie complexes with little impact on the exterior. This strategy makes good financial sense and creates more community appeal than a new featureless box or a new complex with an artificial “New Deco” appearance.
The Rouse Co. headquarters, a vacant office building originally designed by Frank Gehry and built in 1974, is a landmark cherished by the residents of Columbia, Md. Current development plans call for transforming this facility into a mixed-use hub that will revitalize the city and attract new residents. Upscale grocer Whole Foods Market will anchor the repurposed facility, which is also planned to include several restaurants, offices and a fitness center. Columbia resident and Howard County Design Advisory Panel member Phillips Engelke called Whole Foods “a magnet for the kind of downtown we’re looking for, and if it’s in one of the most iconic buildings in the area, so much the better.”
The Downtown Makeover
“Adaptive reuse is the basis for any urban redevelopment,” Bombick says. “The intrinsic value and historic significance of an area, as well as its proximity to transportation hubs, factor into its ability to be revitalized.”
With their children leaving and their large homes getting harder to maintain, many recently retired suburban Chicago baby boomers are migrating downtown. They have money to spend, and they seek an active lifestyle. Developers are taking advantage of the post-recession exodus of many corporations by converting downtown vacant office buildings into mixed-use environments that attract retirees. Parts of Chicago’s Loop that were dead at night 15 years ago are reemerging as vibrant, 24-7 communities.
In 2013, the historic Harper Court mixed-use development will reemerge as a community anchor and a beacon for the arts in Chicago’s diverse Hyde Park neighborhood. The project includes renovation of a half-block strip of retail, theater renovations, a hotel, apartments and a University of Chicago office building.
The benefits of repurposing facilities in a mixed-use environment can extend to healthcare providers challenged by the skyrocketing costs of medical services and fierce competition. A provider that occupies an existing facility in a well-respected development not only saves costs over building a stand-alone facility, but also profits from heavy traffic at other facilities within the mix.
Driven by Transportation
High-density development along established transportation nodes is a sustainable response to urban sprawl. The Oakland, Calif.-based Metropolitan Transportation Commission anticipates the San Francisco Bay Area population will grow by 2 million in the next 30 years. Steve Heminger, the commission’s executive director, notes, “We simply cannot have them all driving cars or we’ll be in a world of hurt.”
Rapidly growing established urban settings like the Bay Area will have to prepare by ensuring that people live and work near transportation nodes. Though expansion and new construction are inevitable, these cities will also have to rely on their existing infrastructure and adaptive reuse of their buildings to create a more sustainable, economical and energy-efficient living model.
While some cities are embracing adaptive reuse around established transit hubs, others are repurposing facilities to create the transportation centers that will fuel redevelopment.
For example, the Quad Cities, which consist of two Iowa cities and three Illinois cities, will convert the first floor of a vacant 6-story Moline, Ill., building into a transportation hub. Stakeholders anticipate the Multimodal Station, part of a full-block redevelopment, will not only kick off a revitalization of downtown Moline, but will also reestablish passenger rail service from Chicago to the Quad Cities.
Three-hundred-and-twenty miles to the northwest, St. Paul, Minn., is engrossed in a similar retrofit project at a grander scale. The $243 million project will transform the underused Union Depot building into the Union Depot Multimodal Transit Center. The mixed-use project, featuring condos, restaurants and retail, will revitalize the Lowertown neighborhood while maintaining the appearance of the historic structure.