All posts in “News”

Advantages of Locating Office Product in Mixed-Use Neighborhoods

May 5, 2016 / Comments Off on Advantages of Locating Office Product in Mixed-Use Neighborhoods

Our latest study focuses on the ascension of urban mixed-use development as the preferred environment for the modern office. This report, produced on behalf of the NoMa Business Improvement District in Washington D.C, examines trends in mixed-use office development, and explores its future implications. To understand these trends, we prepared a case study analysis of seven mixed-use districts to measure successes against comparable Commercial Business Districts.

 

Office rents in new, urban mixed-use districts are highly competitive with nearby established central business districts.

Our data analysis found that mixed-use development has become the standard for office development in many urban centers because employees want access to convenient services near their work. Furthermore, employers desire these mixed-use areas in order to attract a talented workforce. Interviews with 19 developers, financiers, brokers, and tenants helped explore the causes and implications of the trends in the data, and examined the benefit the office sector receives from locating in mixed-use districts.

 

Developing new mixed-use areas is challenging because of the risks associated with bringing new uses to an untested market.

Cities and improvement districts that foster mixed-use areas will have a competitive advantage that will be difficult to erode. Interviews emphasized the importance of the public realm and the bottom floor of buildings in successful mixed-use districts, elements municipalities can control or influence. The streetscape and the ground floor of buildings have an impact on the resulting urban spaces that should be attractive, inviting, and have the distinct sense-of-place employees and residents desire.

 

Read the full white paper below, and find out more about Washington DC’s NoMa neighborhood here.

 

10 Parks that are Changing Cities

April 11, 2016 / Comments Off on 10 Parks that are Changing Cities

 

We’ve worked for 30 years to create some of the most celebrated parks in the U.S. and abroad. These open spaces are critical pieces of urban infrastructure – providing places to play, while also generating economic value, improving public health, and ensuring social cohesion. In our open space practice, we transform underutilized spaces into great urban places, and ensure sustainable stewardship for the generations to come.

 

Tomorrow night at 8:00 PM, we invite you to watch a special television program, called 10 Parks that Changed America, on your local PBS channel. The program, hosted by Geoffrey Baer of Chicago’s WTTW, highlights ten of America’s greatest parks and explores their role in transforming and defining communities throughout the nation. We hope that this program contributes to a growing discussion about the role of urban parks and an appreciation for landscape architecture.

 

In this spirit, we’ve created our own list of ten parks that are changing cities today:

  1. The High Line | New York, NY
    Reimagined what a park can be and how it can define a city
  2. Klyde Warren Park | Dallas, TX
    Reclaimed space over a freeway for leisure and culture in Downtown Dallas
  3. Lakefront Parks | Toronto, ON
    Transformed the lakefront from its industrial past to mixed-use neighborhoods
  4. Brooklyn Bridge Park | Brooklyn, NY
    Laid a cornerstone for Brooklyn’s renaissance, becoming New York City’s first great 21st century park.
  5. Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park | London
    Used the Olympic Games and this park to tilt development Eastward
  6. Romare Bearden Park | Charlotte, NC
    Affirms Charlotte’s eminence as a choice destination to live, work, and play
  7. Fountain Square | Cincinnati, OH
    Engaged civic leadership to catalyze downtown reinvestment around the Square
  8. Anacostia Waterfront Parks | Washington, DC
    Anchored a new neighborhood and reintroduced residents to the river
  9. Shelby Farms Park | Memphis, TN
    Reimagined Memphis as a city of equity and opportunity
  10. The Lawn on D | Boston, MA
    Demonstrated the value of engaging interim programming in placemaking

As we look to the future, we are thrilled to help shape and sustain the next great urban open spaces. We hope you enjoy tomorrow’s show and continue the conversation with us.

Resilient NOLA receives a National Planning Excellence Award for Best Practice

March 31, 2016 / Comments Off on Resilient NOLA receives a National Planning Excellence Award for Best Practice

HR&A Advisors is a proud partner of Resilient NOLA, this year’s recipient of the American Planning Association’s National Planning Excellence Award for Best Practice.

 

NOLA

 

Resilient NOLA, the groundbreaking resilience strategy for the City of New Orleans, released in August 2015, is this year’s recipient of the APA National Planning Excellence Award for Best Practice. The strategic actions in this plan, developed with HR&A’s support as part of 100 Resilient Cities – Pioneered by the Rockefeller Foundation, will shape the future of New Orleans by defining an implementation-driven, holistic approach to advancing the city’s physical, economic, and social resilience. This approach, which incorporated the input of over 350 stakeholders including historically underserved residents, looks beyond traditional recovery and physical resilience interventions to create a transformative vision for inclusion, connectivity, and economic vitality.

 

The team developed the strategy’s 41 project-specific initiatives through an integrative process that considered the critical needs of environmental preparedness, infrastructure and systems modernization, and equitable access to opportunity. These actionable initiatives include increased coastal protections, urban water management strategies, and infrastructure systems redundancy to protect the city’s physical assets, as well as affordable housing policies, workforce development programs, and improved transit connectivity to foster empowered, equitable communities and economic growth for multiple generations of New Orleanians.

 

HR&A is a proud partner in this work, and will continue supporting the City of New Orleans through the implementation of its resilience initiatives, including the Gentilly Resilience District, which was recently awarded $141 million from U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development through the National Disaster Resilience Competition.

Green Infrastructure’s Triple Bottom Line

March 10, 2016 / Comments Off on Green Infrastructure’s Triple Bottom Line

Green Infrastructure places an imperative on stormwater management strategies that deliver powerful environmental, societal and economic benefits.

 

Eric Rothman will moderate and present on the panel “The Triple-Bottom-Line Beauty of Green Infrastructure” at the annual New Jersey Future Redevelopment Forum on Friday, March 11 in New Brunswick, NJ. Panelists will present case studies and lessons learned on evaluating cost and benefits, managing risk and innovation, and maximizing the social and economic value on green infrastructure for stormwater management.

 

Eric is joined on this panel by Michele Adams PE, President, Meliora Design; Russ D. Dudley PE LEED AP, Environmental Engineer, Tera Tech; Christopher Franklin, Director of Construction, Brandywine Realty Trust; Matthew Testa LEED AP, Director of Construction, Bijou Properties.

 

HR&A Advisors has promoted Green Infrastructure for its clients including economic assessments of a district stormwater system within the proposed Southwest EcoDistrict in Washington DC, proposed changes to the City of Detroit’s stormwater policies, and green infrastructure retrofits within Dallas’s park system.

 

The New Jersey Future’s annual Redevelopment Forum is their biggest event of the year, attracting more than 500 local and state officials, citizen activists, development professionals, architects, attorneys, planners, business leaders, and students. In September 2015, New Jersey Future launched a significant statewide initiative on Mainstreaming Green Infrastructure.

HR&A President Eric Rothman Named Board Chair of the Design Trust for Public Space

February 22, 2016 / Comments Off on HR&A President Eric Rothman Named Board Chair of the Design Trust for Public Space

Board Chair

 

The Design Trust for Public Space is a nationally recognized non-profit catalyst that engages planners, government agencies, and community stakeholders on projects to improve New York City’s landscape. These projects have ranged from incubating the High Line Park to re-imagining Times Square, as well as it’s most recent Under the Elevated project, to make spaces underneath highway and transit infrastructure more inviting for New Yorkers.

 

“I’m proud to lead the Design Trust Board and to continue Andrea Woodner’s legacy. Andrea and her creation of the Design Trust catalyzed new thinking about public space, dramatically transforming the lifeblood of our city—its public buildings, streets, plazas, parks and infrastructure. The Design Trust’s work has raised people’s expectations for a higher quality of life; changed how city agencies operate; and resulted in new laws and regulations for a lasting, positive impact for the lives of New Yorkers.”

– Eric Rothman

 

Eric first joined the Design Trust in 2006 as an Economic Policy Fellow to evaluate the economics of the New York City taxi industry and make policy recommendations for Taxi 07: Roads Forward, a re-imagined taxi system for the twenty-first century. Eric continued working with the Design Trust as a member of a jury and an advisor for Made in Midtown and Making Midtown, the organization’s enhanced vision for Manhattan’s Garment District. Eric joined the Design Trust Board in 2013 and served as co-chair of the DT Council and on the Executive and Finance committees. He succeeds the Design Trust’s co-founder and long-time board President Andrea Woodner. Andrea will continue to focus on fundraising for the Design Trust as Chair of the Founder’s Circle, while launching her new Hercules Art/ Studio program, which provides affordable studio space and community for emerging artists in Lower Manhattan.

 

Read this press release from the Design Trust to learn more about Eric Rothman’s appointment and the organization.

HR&A Supports The Rockefeller Foundation’s Resilience Capacity Building

January 11, 2016 / Comments Off on HR&A Supports The Rockefeller Foundation’s Resilience Capacity Building

NDRC

 

In an era in which limited public funding for infrastructure and community development meets increasing risks due to climate change and other factors, HR&A is a key strategic advisor and technical assistance partner for local, state and federal governments as they create and implement innovative strategies and initiatives to enhance their resilience. As program manager for The Rockefeller Foundation’s Capacity Building Initiative in support of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)’s National Disaster Resilience Competition (NDRC), HR&A provided technical support as 67 cities, states, and counties that suffered presidentially-declared disasters between 2011 and 2013 prepared projects and programs to respond to a broad array of climate-related risks in an innovative manner that also addresses social, economic and environmental challenges.

 

The initiative included overwhelming participation in 10 “Resilience Academies” across the United States as well as other technical assistance efforts, which were supported by a network of over 150 federal agency representatives and 250 designers, engineers, scientists, professors, and other subject matter experts representing nearly 75 universities, professional firms, and non-profits. Officials including Director Shaun Donovan (OMB), Secretary Julian Castro (HUD), Judge Alice Hill (National Security Council), and John Podesta (White House) attended various convenings organized by HR&A to demonstrate their support of the initiative.

 

The Capacity Building Initiative generated robust outcomes toward The Rockefeller Foundation’s goals. The workshops successfully built capacity to create more resilient communities over the long term by teaching key resilience concepts, encouraging multi-agency collaboration and team-building, and connecting the applicants to subject matter experts and government agency representatives. The initiative broadened our national approach to creating resilient communities and provided support and tools to generate compelling, competitive NDRC proposals.

 

The Obama Administration will announce the winners of the NDRC in early 2016 from among 40 finalist jurisdictions, who submitted proposals ranging from adaptation of major infrastructure and creation of green and grey stormwater infrastructure, to housing and community development, to workforce development and social resilience programs.

Dallas Trinity Parkway “Dream Team” Charrette

December 15, 2015 / Comments Off on Dallas Trinity Parkway “Dream Team” Charrette

HR&A worked with a multidisciplinary team of designers, planners, architects, and engineers to refine a vision for Dallas’ Trinity Parkway.TheDreamTeamsTrinity

In early 2015, Mayor Rawlings of Dallas invited Chairman John Alschuler and Principal Elissa Hoagland Izmailyan to participate in a charrette with a “Dream Team” comprised of twelve high-profile designers, planners, architects, and engineers to define a consistent vision for a new road that will run along the Trinity River corridor through a future Trinity River Park. HR&A’s work focused on the potential for economic development and the value of creating a “parkway” experience through the future park. This process resulted in the Trinity Parkway Design Charrette Report, which included an outline of principles for the parkway’s design. The report was unanimously endorsed by the Dallas City Council as a preferred vision for the parkway’s design and development.

 

The Trinity River Park presents a unique opportunity to bring the citizens of Dallas together in a beautiful, communal space, and catalyze economic development along the Trinity River. The Trinity Trust Foundation recently received a $1 million donation to fund planning and design for the corridor’s park, with feedback from the public. HR&A will continue to offer guidance on and exploration of economic development opportunities surrounding the Trinity River corridor.

 

Read more about the Dream Team in the Dallas Morning News and The Dallas City Hall Blog.

HR&A and Sasaki Associates Selected to Advance the Pennsylvania Avenue Revitalization Initiative

December 14, 2015 / Comments Off on HR&A and Sasaki Associates Selected to Advance the Pennsylvania Avenue Revitalization Initiative

 

The National Capital Planning Commission (NCPC) has commissioned HR&A Advisors and Sasaki Associates to develop economic and urban design framework strategies for the Pennsylvania Avenue corridor between the White House and the Capitol in Washington, DC. This work is a critical part of the Pennsylvania Avenue Initiative, launched in 2014 by NCPC, the General Services Administration, and the National Park Service. The goal of the Initiative is to develop a vision for how the Avenue can meet both local and national needs in a 21st century capital city.

 

While still home to many national landmarks, notable government and private sector office buildings, museums, theaters, and hotels, the Avenue is also in need of improvements to help it to meet the changing needs of Downtown Washington and the District overall. In recent years, Downtown Washington has gained a sizable residential population. A wave of new development in neighborhoods across the City has expanded opportunities for people to live, work, and play. Along the Avenue, the ongoing conversion of the Old Post Office to a hotel and the pending redevelopment of the Hoover Building following the relocation of the FBI make this a critical time to think about the future of the Avenue. The Master Plan has not been updated in more than 40 years, since the 1974 Pennsylvania Avenue Plan, which was implemented by the now-defunct Pennsylvania Avenue Development Corporation.

 

HR&A is leading development of the economic portion of the project, conducting a market analysis and developing strategies to stimulate reinvestment in the corridor, including in public open spaces. As part of this work, the Team is engaging stakeholders, exploring opportunities for improving the mix of uses, and providing high level estimates of costs, benefits, and potential funding sources for various strategies and urban design interventions.

 

For more information on the Pennsylvania Avenue Initiative, visit NCPC’s Pennsylvania Avenue Initiative website and a featured article on the selection of Sasaki and HR&A in the Washington Business Journal.

Health Districts | Key Lessons for Municipalities and Partner Health Care Organizations

December 12, 2015 / Comments Off on Health Districts | Key Lessons for Municipalities and Partner Health Care Organizations

 

Crossposted from the National Resource Network
By:Todd Fawley-King, Caroline McCarthy, and Judith Taylor

 

Our recent publication –Striking a (Local) Grand Bargain – explores how municipalities and anchor institutions can substantially increase community stability, economic competitiveness, and health outcomes when they jointly establish a shared long-term community vision and coordinate policy and investments. For cities with large anchor medical institutions, successful health districts integrate medical facilities into mixed-use neighborhoods to support economic, social, and community health goals.

 

The City of Lancaster, California is planning for a new health and wellness district and would like to create a partnership with the Antelope Valley Hospital. The National Resource Network provided in-depth case studies of other health districts in similar cities to help Lancaster understand the scope and key elements a health district should include, as well as the potential impacts. In addition, the Network drew on experience planning for healthy communities, including a health district plan for Meridian, MS, and implementation support for a healthy campus in Kansas City, KS. From this research, we have identified several key lessons that may be applicable to other cities considering similar districts.

 

Formal “initial thinking” in collaboration between a municipality and an existing health care institute is a common element of the successful health districts studied.

 

The health institutions that formed the nucleus of these successful health districts and the municipality often conducted preliminary planning or collaborative work to form and strengthen their partnerships, which then helped increase stakeholder interest in the investment and effort needed to form the district.

 

Health districts can coordinate development among individual institutions to efficiently maximize capital resources, share the burden of infrastructure improvements, and support ambitious projects.

 

Health districts may be especially useful in cities with multiple large medical anchor institutions that have similar investment and infrastructure needs. The dialogue inherent in the formation and maintenance of the health district plan can facilitate creative approaches to finance and encourage shared responsibility of infrastructure upgrades benefitting multiple stakeholders. This process may also encourage the formation of a political coalition necessary to champion ambitious projects and access diverse funding options such as state or federal grants.

 

There are several challenges that can hinder collaboration and realization of a successful health district.

 

Notably,partnerships between institutions with similar market aspirations can be tenuous, especially when the economy contracts. Establishment of a health district where the key members are competing institutions may be challenging; a health district with complimentary facilities may result in greater collaboration and success. In addition, changes in the leadership of the municipality can derail a project that is led primarily by the public sector, making it important to carefully consider what entity should lead the initiative.

 

The right leadership can ensure continued relevance of the plan and support for long-term objectives.

 

Most cities that pursue a health district must choose between a public-leadership of the initiative or assigning a separate non-profit entity to lead. Public-led health district initiatives require long term city commitment and consideration of how to maintain focus during leadership changes.  For some cities, a non-profit coordination organization may be best suited for the lead role because a specially-designated entity can focus and steward the resources necessary to coordinate institutional planning, effectively represent public and private interests, and access financing opportunities such as grants. Additionally, a designated non-profit coordination organization can add dedicated implementation capacity and help maintain focus on the objectives of the plan during leadership changes. However, in considering creating a non-profit coordinating entity, stakeholders must ensure the organization will have sufficient resources to support itself and its mission. Possible revenue sources may include philanthropic support or revenue from assets in the district the non-profit could manage.

 

Successful health districts are comprehensive and actively involve all nearby landowners.

 

Instead of focusing narrowly on the municipality and the medical institutions, successful health districts reach out to all landowners to create a comprehensive vision for the future of the community. This expansive view is necessary to secure widespread community support and better targets the full range of investment by all stakeholders in the district towards achieving the long-term goals and objectives.

 

Cities should actively pursue partnerships with potential new anchor institutions while preparing a master plan.

 

Attraction of new anchor medical institutions to a district is a clear sign of the success of a health district masterplan. Cities have a valuable opportunity during the preparation of the plan to incorporate attractive policies and incentives and thus should reach out to potential anchors during the preparation phase to understand what cost-effective incentives, infrastructure upgrades, or policies might induce new institutions to locate in the planned health district.

 

Health districts are powerful long-term strategies that require considerable investment of time to develop and maintain. Municipalities considering a health district should assess the resources and institutional capacity necessary to partner productively with a medical institution to make a health district a reality. To ensure success, cities that choose to pursue a health district should carefully consider how to apply the key lessons identified here, and also review the Network’s report on collaboration between municipalities and their anchor institutions.