Retrofitting Suburbia was named winner in the Architecture & Urban Planning category of the 2009 American Publishers Awards for Professional and Scholarly Excellence (The PROSE Awards) awarded by The Professional and Scholarly Publishing (PSP) Division of the Association of American Publishers
Table of Contents
Preface vi
Introduction viii
Urban Versus Suburban Form viii
Why Retrofits? Why Now? xii
Organization of the Book xiii
Acknowledgments xv
Chapter 1 Instant Architecture, Instant Cities, and Incremental Metropolitanism 2
Instant Cities and Suburban Retrofits 2
Instant Architecture, Instant Public Space 6
Incremental Metropolitanism 9
How Sustainable? How Urban? 12
Chapter 2 Retrofitting Garden Apartments and Residential Subdivisions to Address Density and the New Demographics 16
Never Homogenous? The New Suburban History 17
Demographic Changes 18
Retrofitting Policy 20
Retrofitting Residential Subdivisions 22
Revising the Rules: Kansas City First Suburbs Coalition and DADUs in Seattle 23
Connect the Culs-de-sac: Apollo Beach and Laurel Bay 25
From Subdivision to Edge City: Greenway Plaza 27
From Subdivision to TOD: MetroWest 27
Reintegrating Garden Apartment Buffer Sites 29
Accommodating New Immigrants: Brookside Apartments and Gulfton 30
Market Devaluation: Park Forest Courts 32
Gentrification Infill: Gramercy and The Colony 34
Tomorrow’s Suburbanites 35
Chapter 3 Residential Case Study: Changes to “Levittown” 44
The Earliest Postwar Suburbs Are Sixty Years Old Demographic Diversity in Levittown, Willingboro, and Park
Forest 46
Failure and Redevelopment of Retail Properties 51
Resistance to Change in Residential Patterns 52
Diversifying Housing Choices 54
Paths Toward Further Change 56
Chapter 4 Retrofitting Social Life Along Commercial Strips 59
Third Places in Suburbia? 59
History of the Strip and Its Building Types 62
The Drive out of Town 62
Adaptive Reuse of Big Boxes and Strip Malls for Community-Serving Activities 67
Reviving Ghostboxes 67
From Strip Malls to Community Anchors: La Grande Orange and Camino Nuevo 70
Retrofitting Shopping Centers: The Middle Scale 72
Regreening: Phalen 72
Public Sector Strategies to Support Retrofitting 75
Santana Row’s Rough Road to Riches 78
From Strip Centers to New Downtown: Temple Terrace 80
Retrofitting the Corridors Themselves: Designing for Mobility or Access or Both 81
The Transit Boulevard and the Urban Network 82
Return of the Multiway Boulevard: Cathedral City 84
Rezoning Corridors: Three Examples in Atlanta 87
Inducing Transit on a Corridor Through Form-Based Codes: Columbia Pike 90
Retrofitting the Urban Structure of Commercial Strips 92
Social Infrastructure 9
Chapter 5 Strips Case Study: Mashpee Commons, Cape Cod, Massachusetts 95
Attaching to a Well-Established Fragment of Urbanism Site History 98
Morphological Analysis 102
From Strip to Downtown: Mashpee’s Third Place 105
Chapter 6 From Regional Malls to New Downtowns Through Mixed-Use and Public Space 108
The Significance of Public Space 110
A Brief History of Malls 112
Dead and Dying Malls 114
Changing Uses to Meet Local Needs 119
Downsizing: Park Forest and Willingboro 119
From Enclosed Malls to New Downtowns 123
From Dead Mall to New Downtown: Mizner Park 123
Turning a Mall Inside Out: Winter Park Village 126
Incremental Metropolitanism Around Denver: CityCenter Englewood 129
Infilling Around a Live Mall 134
You Can Save the Tree and Have Tiffany’s, Too: Walnut Creek 134
From Mall to Transit-Served University and Office Tower: Surrey Central City 136
The Role and Form of Mixed-Use and Public Space in Retrofitted Malls 138
Chapter 7 Mall Case Study: Cottonwood, Holladay, Utah 140
From Concept to Press Release
Repositioning Mall Properties 142
Market Study and Mini-Charrette 143
Charrette 146
Benefits of the Charrette 151
Chapter 8 Mall Case Study: Belmar, Lakewood, Colorado 154
“Enrich Your Life, Not Your Lawn” in Lakewood’s New Downtown “Greening”: Finding the Funding for Sustainable Urbanism 159
Morphological Analysis 162
From Bunkers to Streetscapes: Public Space 166
New Uses/New Users 170
Chapter 9 Edge City Infill: Improving Walkability and Interconnectivity 172
Redirecting Edge Cities 173
The Evolution of Edge and Edgeless Cities 177
Edgeless Cities 179
Infilling Edge Cities 180
Addison Circle 180
Legacy Town Center 182
Perimeter Place 183
How Effective Are the Infill Strategies? 186
Edge-City Retrofits Across Multiple Parcels 187
The Future of Edge Cities 191
Chapter 10 Edge City Case Study: Downtown Kendall/Dadeland, Miami-Dade County, Florida 192
Zoning the Creation of New Blocks and Squares over Multiple Parcels Regulating an Urbanizing Framework 196
Morphological Analysis 198
Demographic Analysis: Reaping the Benefits of Interconnectivity 201
Chapter 11 Suburban Office and Industrial Park Retrofits to Recruit the Creative Class 203
Suburban Industrial Parks, Office Parks, and Corporate Campuses 204
Nonconcentric Patterns of Commuting 206
Polycentric Atlanta: Bellsouth in Lenox Park, Midtown, and Lindbergh City Center 207
Recruiting the Creative Class 209
Creative Campus: SkySong 211
Retrofitting Suburban Workplaces 211
Glass Box Lofts: Cloud 9 Sky Flats 212
Lofts on the Interstate: Upper Rock 214
Retrofitting Industrial Parks 216
Instant Urbanism: Westwood Station 217
Chapter 12 Office Park Case Study: University Town Center, Prince George’s County, Maryland 219
Finishing a Job Started Almost Half a Century Ago Transit Provides Opportunity for Infilling with Mixed Use 222
Morphological Analysis 225
Demographic Analysis: Appeal to the Creative Class? 228
Epilogue: The Landscape of Incremental Metropolitanism in 2050 230
Notes 234
Image Credits 248
Index 249
