In New Urban Villages, City Living Becomes Trendy

Patty and Kevin Cunningham have nothing against Chino Hills, the town 20 miles west of Riverside where they’ve lived for seven years. It’s just that, “quite frankly, there’s absolutely nothing to do,” Patty says. That’s why, come spring, this two-career couple in their 50s who love night life and people watching will move into a two-bedroom apartment above a shopping mall.

Not just any shopping mall--Paseo Colorado, the Pasadena development that opened in September mixing apartment living with stores, restaurants, a high-end supermarket, gym, spa and a multiplex. The Cunninghams, minus their two grown children, will rent a two-bedroom apartment, one of 387 units that lease for $1,500 to $4,000 a month and look out over a P.F. Chang’s restaurant, a Sephora cosmetics store, busy Colorado Boulevard and the Pasadena skyline.

Paseo Colorado is one of many mixed-use developments in various stages of completion around the country that combine residential, office and retail space in close proximity, a trend that has been gaining steam in recent years. In Southern California, where apartment living is traditionally considered a stop on the way to homeownership, these new developments are drawing the young and hip along with older empty-nesters, realizing a long-heralded growth of a new urbanism.

In rejuvenated Hollywood, a complex at Sunset Boulevard and Vine Street will break ground early next year and include 300 apartments above 100,000 square feet of retail space. A proposal for a $90-million pedestrian-friendly development in North Hollywood near a Red Line subway station was just announced. It would include 534 residential units and 28,000 square feet of retail space and would be completed by 2006. Burbank is expected to approve a complex for retail space, lofts and townhomes on a full city block downtown. And in 2003, Long Beach will complete CityPlace, an eight-square-block complex combining apartments with retail space that will replace the Long Beach Plaza mall and complement the 9-year-old nearby retail-residential mix at Pine Avenue and Broadway.

Then there’s Playa Vista, the much-debated and long-delayed mixed-use project on a much grander scale. The complex between Venice and Los Angeles International Airport combines condominiums, apartments, affordable housing, single-family dwellings, office space, parks, a clubhouse and retail space in styles ranging from modern to Mediterranean on 350 acres. After much debate about the use of wetlands on the site, construction on Playa Vista has begun, and residents will be able to move into a few buildings early next year; the project’s first phase is expected to be completed by 2006.

The number of mixed-use projects of 15 acres or more completed or under construction rose 37% this year, according to New Urban News, from 155 in 2000 to 213 in 2001. More than 400 such projects of various sizes already exist, spread throughout the country.

Many of these “urban villages” are springing up with fanfare and high hopes, especially in downtowns where few traces of human life can be spotted at night or on weekends.

In Salt Lake City, the Gateway, designed by L.A.-based architect Jon Jerde, opened this month. It features a renovated Union Pacific railroad depot and open-air plaza as its centerpiece. An array of architectural styles define residential units, retail space, museums, restaurants and office space on a 30-acre former railway yard.

For Jerde, who designed Horton Plaza in San Diego and Universal CityWalk, creating the infrastructure for a multifaceted community such as this has been a longtime dream.

“You have people with all kinds of goals. You have office workers mixing with shoppers mixing with residents and tourists. The more expanded the mix of individuals, the more likely it’s going to click on a true urbanistic feeling,” Jerde says.

Skip Rogers, 38, says living in Brea’s revitalized downtown district has been better than he could have imagined. Built in the early 1990s, it incorporates lofts, townhomes, office and retail spaces, as well as restaurants and entertainment on a few city streets rather than a giant complex. Today, a steady stream of shoppers and the consistent, nearly full occupancy of its lofts and townhomes have rendered it a success.

Rogers teaches computer classes at two Rowland Heights elementary schools and says the urban environment “is exactly what attracted me. If I need a Starbucks fix, there’s one downstairs. I feel it’s more of a community here than the average apartment complex. We all feel like we’re in a special location. It feels more like a city.”

Although he could do without the occasional delivery truck noise around 3 a.m., Rogers says he loves the vaulted ceilings and linoleum floors of his 730-square-foot loft, as well as being able to walk to Tower Records or the grocery store. And when it comes time to look for a house, he adds, “it’ll be bittersweet to move into an average home, without something like this that’s so unique.”

Bob Anderson and his wife, Dawn, traded a 3,300-square-foot Atlanta home for a two-bedroom apartment in a mixed-use building in the city’s Buckhead neighborhood. Although Bob misses the stability of his old street, “My quality of life has improved,” says the 59-year-old former PricewaterhouseCoopers partner who now works as a financial advisor. His office is less than a five-minute walk in the same building. “You only use your car when you want to, and you have more time to read and go to the gym.”

Why so many of these projects now? Developers and investors like the fact that their future doesn’t depend on just one factor--the retail climate, housing demands or the need for office space. Zoning laws in many areas are easing too, making building easier, especially for filling in underused or vacant areas in densely populated cities.

‘A Different Kind of Intrinsic Value’

While developers have not abandoned the suburbs, many are looking for other economically viable alternatives and have found that urban villages and town centers can command higher rents for retail, residential and office spaces. Retail stores also report that their profits are higher than in comparable traditional single-use developments.

“By investing in property that is firmly planted in the viability of a greater community, the real estate has a different kind of intrinsic value, which has stability to it,” says John Given, senior vice president for Hollywood-based CIM Group, developer of downtown Brea, as well as projects in San Diego and Pasadena.

Residents are attracted to these developments for a variety of reasons, from wanting to be part of the excitement cities offer to cutting down on commuting time.

“If you look at pop culture today, like MTV, cities seem exciting,” says Steven Bodzin, a spokesman for the San Francisco-based Congress for the New Urbanism. The 8-year-old nonprofit organization works with architects, planners, developers and others in creating new urban communities with walkable neighborhoods and attractive civic spaces. “Still, our language carries the weight from previous generations--we associate cities with street people--words not loaded with positive values.”

There is no tried-and-true recipe for success for these mixed-use projects, which began cropping up in the early 1990s. Some discourage families, creating villages with a majority of single people and childless couples. Others do not offer affordable housing for low-income tenants. Developments with large retail components could have a life span dependent on economic tides. And there is no guarantee that an add-people-and-stir formula will produce a flourishing, safe, bonded community instead of one that feels like a theme park with apartments.

“There certainly is no blueprint for a new urbanist community--there’s a whole range of generational niches,” says Andrew Ross, a professor and director of the American Studies program at New York University. “Single people often have more time for each other, and as a result I guess they would have a stronger sense of community in that respect.”

Jane Jacobs begs to differ. The author of the 1961 book “The Death and Life of Great American Cities” and other volumes on urbanism, Jacobs long ago touted the notion that cities should be built not to showcase aesthetically pleasing buildings, but to foster stronger communities by making the necessities of life readily available.

Now 85 and living in Canada, she’s pleased that many of the new mixed-use developments in the U.S. are thriving. But she cautions, “If there are too many apartments or other dwellings that are all the same, it’s not just that it discourages families, it discourages diversity, and that’s very important. What you need is a mix of people in their life spans. That’s the key to these things.”

Redesigning an Old Idea

Living above retail or office space is an old idea that’s recently been dusted off, recycled and redesigned. People have been residing on top of bakeries, butcher shops and tailor’s studios for centuries, forging communities in small neighborhoods. After World War II, suburban sprawl lured large numbers of families out of the cities and into two-car-garage homes with backyard barbecues; planned communities such as Levittown, N.Y., became the American dream. Now, with cities and suburbs becoming increasingly crowded, city planners, developers and architects are luring people back to underutilized urban neighborhoods.

Mizner Park in Boca Raton, Fla., was a failed suburban shopping mall in 1989 that was converted to a 28-acre development featuring shops, cafes, office space and various types of housing. It’s considered by many to be the first of the new wave of mixed-use developments and it remains vital today. Another still-popular project is Kentlands in Gaithersburg, Md., which opened in the early ‘90s. The neighborhood sited on 352 acres has various types of housing, schools, retail and a recreation center. Cities such as Philadelphia, Dallas, Atlanta, Denver and many others also have variations on the new urban village.

However, the concept is relatively new in the L.A. region, where visions of the good life usually include owning a house with a pool. But in reality, not everyone can afford a house or wants to live in one.

Some critics see these full-service developments as the new incarnations of Levittown-type communities, equally controlled and artificial, just compressed into a denser area. But while they are designed as developments providing residents with many services, most of these new urban projects don’t pretend to be self-sustaining communities. Rather, they hope to integrate into existing communities, drawing from and building upon what’s already there.

Mixed-use projects are definitely encouraged in Los Angeles, says Con Howe, director of the Department of City Planning. “It minimizes traffic and it fosters better security and neighborhood stability since it keeps people on the streets. One of the city’s goals for years has been to have a bigger residential population downtown, since it’s basically an abandoned office district at night.”

While Howe doesn’t see downtown Los Angeles developing any new projects on the scale of Paseo Colorado, he does see potential for smaller mixed-use developments with shops and services geared to residents, and cites the developments around Staples Center and the new Medici apartment complex at 8th and Bixel streets as hopeful signs that downtown could have a viable life after hours.

Building a Sense of Connectedness

The goal for Pasadena’s Paseo Colorado was to “create something that’s like a town square, the way towns have developed over time,” says David Stockert, president and chief operating officer of Post Properties, developer of Paseo’s residential component as well as other mixed-use venues in Denver, Houston, Addison, Texas, and Arlington, Va.

But Stockert says he isn’t creating a community “from scratch.” By setting apartments between Pasadena’s flourishing Old Town and the city’s theater district, a sense of connectedness is built in.

Apartments at Paseo, which won’t be completed until spring, range from 500-square-foot studios to 1,200-square-foot lofts and two-bedroom units. There are no separate dining spaces and eight communal outdoor terraces invite residents to congregate.

Architect William Roschen of Roschen Van Cleve Architects in Hollywood, urban consultants and design architects for the Sunset and Vine development (Nakada & Partners are the main architects), sees his project as part of what he hopes will become a larger residential neighborhood in the heart of a newly revived Hollywood.

“The times are right for this kind of project,” Roschen says. “There is a genuine love of our cities, and that empowers designers and urbanists to go out there and be a part of that.”

An urban stew of residents, workers and visitors is essential to maintaining the health of a mixed-use development, says NYU’s Ross. “You’re in a neighborhood, you know a lot of the folks, a lot of the shopkeepers, but there are also strangers on the streets. If you can produce that mix, it tends to be a more healthy form of social interaction than in a very bounded neighborhood environment. People may know each other, but if visitors are regarded with some suspicion, then the residents run the risk of being socially isolated.”

For Jerde, the key to the survival of places such as Salt Lake City’s Gateway may be re-creating a bit of his own childhood. Growing up in Belmont Shore in Long Beach, the architect fondly recalls a place where he knew not only his neighbors, but shopkeepers as well.

“I didn’t realize how fantastic it was until I went back there recently,” he says. “I really do think that you forever build the place you were from, or the fantasy of that place--only this time you get it right.”