• Suburban retrofit opportunities rising due to COVID

    A new report makes the case that walkable suburbs are the are the next big development trend.
    A large cohort of home buyers is heading to the suburbs, and the group is looking for opportunities to live close to where they work, according to Suburban Boom: How COVID-19 May Accelerate the Trend Already in the Making , by analysts Cushman & Wakefield. Not all suburbs are created equal—...Read more

  • Creating Temenos: An experiment in suburban retrofit

    An elegant plan to transform a struggling shopping mall into a mixed-use town center uses the same principles of sacred geometry that were employed by Pierre L'Enfant in the urban design of Washington, DC.
    “The catalog of forms is endless; until every shape has found its city, new cities will continue to be born.” ~ Italo Calvino In an article early last year, I reported on the process by which Pierre L’Enfant designed the city of Washington, using various principles of what is known as “sacred...Read more

  • Malls to mixed-use centers and other opportunities

    While hundreds of malls are declining, they are also being reused for all kinds of purposes—including walkable urban places in communities lacking in this kind of environment.
    This is one of a series of ongoing Public Square articles on the market, technological, and cultural transformation of the $5 trillion retail industry—and how it relates to a continued shift toward walkable, urban living. The retail industry is going through major upheaval. This situation does not...Read more

  • Converting a shopping mall to a downtown

    Downtown Westminster, Colorado, is designed as a ‘place’ that grows organically with affordable housing included.
    A new downtown is being built for Westminster, Colorado, a suburban city with no previous walkable downtown—on 105-acre former shopping mall site. Downtown Westminster will include 2,300 residential units with substantial affordable housing, and 1.7 million square feet of commercial uses—such as a...Read more