Balancing act

To generate respectable returns while maintaining high design standards, the developers of Bradburn use innovative construction techniques and employ a combination of production and custom builders. When architect Andres Duany wants to provide a perfect illustration of the Transect, he uses his plan for Bradburn, a traditional neighborhood development (TND) under construction in Westminster, Colorado. From trails and open space on the southeast corner of the 124-acre site through residential blocks to the town center, Bradburn is a cross-section of the classic American town. The community, developed by Continuum Partners, may also be a textbook example of how to balance New Urbanism and commercial considerations. The project has a five-year timeline during which 780 residential units are to be built in a wide range of types, and nearly a quarter-million square feet of retail, office space, and civic buildings will be completed. During that period, Continuum expects to generate a 20 percent annual return on investment from residential sales and end up owning the town center. The latter is projected to generate a 12 percent return on assets, New Urban News was told in an interview with Continuum managers and directors. “The goal is to build a mixed-use community and in the end own the commercial center,” said Jeff Pedard, the firm’s director of development. “Ours is a long-term hold position.” Continuum counts a series of factors in its favor as it tries to build a community that is financially successful: • Production builders have committed to purchasing a total of 220 for-sale lots, more than half of the total. National builder Beazer Homes will constr uct 140 townhouses, and New Town Homes, a regional builder, will build 80 singles. That leaves 181 lots for custom builders. • Because the Denver/Boulder area has numerous TNDs already under construction, the builders are experienced in this kind of development (New Urban News has toured Colorado TNDs and observed that most are relatively high-quality). • Bradburn has a strong retail location, on a road with 35,000 daily car trips, is near major employment centers, and is within ten miles of more than a half-million people (Westminster is equidistant between Denver and Boulder). • Continuum benefitted from an unusual degree of cooperation from the Westminster mayor and city council members, who changed zoning codes, approved reduced street widths (27 feet curb-to-curb in residential areas, with parking on both sides), and expedited entitlements for the project. City officials even traveled 2,000 miles to see Kentlands in Gaithersburg, Maryland, to educate themselves on TND. By the same token, Continuum still faces significant challenges. • Design costs are substantially higher than conventional development, due partly to TND and Continuum’s approach, and partly to the fact that Bradburn is still a pioneering project. The firm spent $200,000 for architectural prototyping, including a book by Boulder architects Wolff-Lyon, to show how houses will lay out on lots and how streetscapes will look. A primary purpose was to reassure local officials. • High-tech economic woes have caused a collapse in the office market in Colorado. Continuum had to scratch plans for multi-story, mixed-use buildings in the first phase of the town center, and figure out how to make the first main street block look good with single-story structures. • Leasing for a main street configuration is still a challenge for stores used to occupying strip malls. Continuum has not identified an anchor grocery store for the town center; that store is to be built in a later phase. • The buildings in the town center are smaller (5,000-11,000 square feet in phase one) than Continuum is used to developing. The small-scale buildings are important for human scale and walkability. town center strategy The town center will be constructed immediately — concurrent with the residential development — without any subsidies, according to the developers. Both the commercial and residential portions of the project stand on their own financially, and have been financed and accounted for separately. Continuum will compete directly with nearby strip malls for retail tenants, yet unlike its suburban competitors, will pay for costly architectural details on all four sides of its commercial buildings. To save money, Continuum will build its first retail buildings with tilt-up construction technology (see accompanying article), reducing costs by $12-13 per square foot. Will Fleissig, director of design for Continuum, calls Bradburn a “second-generation TND,” largely because of its approach to retail, which is informed as much by the lessons of modern suburban retailing as the principles of New Urbanism. “Until now, most new urbanists have been primarily residential builders and usually weren’t really retail/commercial developers,” he says. “ They knew they had to do some mixed-use element, but weren’t really sure how to place it.” Bradburn’s plan represents the more recent new urbanist practice of placing town centers where they will garner maximum commercial benefit from drive-by traffic while still being walkable to residential neighborhoods. Bradburn shops will face the walkable main street, but signage, most of the parking, and attractive facades will be built along the arterial road, Fleissig told New Urban News. Customers will only need to walk a short distance through carefully designed paseos to get to the main street. In some ways, the retail buildings will function like outbuildings in a typical commercial strip — a concept that tenants are comfortable with, he points out. mix of elements The architecture will mix traditional and modern elements. Developers followed the precedent of single-story historic main streets, of which there are numerous examples in Colorado. To achieve economies of scale in financing and construction, the firm treated the first four commercial buildings as a single development unit totaling 35,000 square feet, Fleissig says. Continuum is planning to build multistory commercial buildings in future phases. The town center is in pre-leasing and is scheduled to open in August of 2003. Regional and local tenants have signed leases or are actively negotiating leases, including a hair salon, a dry cleaner, a cafe, two restaurants, a financial planner, a preschool, and a Presbyterian church. The town center, which includes most of the retail and civic uses and higher-density residential, is being financed by Key Bank. Redwood Capital financed the neighborhood general (less dense, mostly residential) part of the community. The town center and residential neighborhoods function symbiotically: The town center will help sell houses, while the residents will help activate the downtown. Bringing in the two production builders was important in bolstering lender confidence. Production builders tend to increase affordability and spur a faster buildout. Custom builders will offer more architecturally detailed, higher-end homes from the mid-300s, topping out at about a million dollars. Bradburn town planners Duany Plater-Zyberk created an architectural code that sets boundaries and standards for residential construction. Some examples: Vinyl siding is excluded, but fiber-cement siding, wood, stucco, brick, and stone are permitted. Muntins must be attached to the front and back of windows (none of the cheap snap-on or sandwich variety), and shutters must be appropriately proportioned. Roof pitches, eaves, porches, and other details are tailored to three styles: Craftsman, Colorado farmhouse, and Denver prairie. Because the value of TND has been proven for residential properties in Colorado, Continuum has been able to charge a premium for residential lots and even multifamily parcels, Fleissig says. He adds, “We’re not seeing that premium yet for the retail because that hasn’t been proven.” Infrastructure and design costs are higher for Bradburn on a per-acre basis, but these “are substantially offset by an increase in density so that the cost per lot of new urban projects is comparable to that of traditional suburban development,” according to a Continuum project overview.