Town Centers to open in Florida, Virginia, and Maryland

Three major new urbanist town centers are opening in the last quarter of 2000 and the first quarter of 2001. Abacoa Town Center in Jupiter, Florida, Pentagon Row in Arlington, Virginia, and King Farm Town Center in Rockville, Maryland, will be the newest of only about a dozen new urbanist town centers with 100,000 or more commercial square footage built. town center for tnd Abacoa Town Center in Jupiter, Florida opened its first mixed-use building at the end of 2000, with additional buildings opening monthly through mid-2001. “It has been a great financial success,” says developer George deGuardiola, adding that the internal rate of return likely will be “as good or better than the typical shopping center or office park.” Abacoa, a 2,100-acre, 6,000-unit traditional neighborhood development, is the only TND with a spring training baseball stadium and a university campus. Florida Atlantic University also houses a new research center devoted to studying the physical and social effects of new urbanist design. A museum gallery and outdoor amphitheater also are planned. Phase I and Phase II of Abacoa’s town center, which was designed by deGuardiola Development, are being simultaneously developed. Phase I includes 412 apartments — 221 located above shops — 47,000 square feet of office space, and 92,000 square feet of retail. More than 90 percent of Phase I retail space has been leased. Residential units, just recently placed on the market, have already drawn interest. The first will be ready for occupancy by the end of the year. Phase II includes a 16-screen, 80,000- square-foot cinema and four-level parking garage, also under construction, as well as plans for a hotel. Abacoa Town Center has opted for small, local stores rather than national chains and big-box retail, and offers residents a range of goods and services such as a local coffee shop, pizza place, sports bar, pharmacy, and optician’s office. A natural food store is included in the town center, with a large Publix also in the development, but outside of the town center. Buildings in the town center will be colorful and feature a variety of architectural styles. Urbanism in a high density area Federal Realty Investment Trust, whose portfolio of 122 retail properties includes new urbanist project Bethesda Row in Bethesda, Maryland, will open parts of Pentagon Row throughout 2001. After 30 years of strip mall development, in the mid-1990s Federal Realty shifted its focus to urban projects, buying several blocks at a time on city streets and renovating existing buildings. Pentagon Row is their first new urbanist development involving the building of all new structures on a previously empty lot. The project is also the first of a series of joint developments for Federal Realty and Post Properties, another real estate investment trust with a new urbanist focus. Pentagon Row is located in the unusually dense suburb of Pentagon City in Arlington, Virginia. It is directly adjacent to Fashion Center, an enclosed mall with department stores, shops, restaurants, and a Ritz-Carlton Hotel. More than 2,000 apartments are within walking distance. But Pentagon City, like so many conventional developments, lacked a walkable main street with public space. "For a phenomenally dense area, there was little in the way of shopping where you could walk around," Robin S. Mosle, Federal’s vice president for development, recently told the Washington Post. Pentagon Row was designed to fill this void. The town center consists of one block of apartments above retail on Army-Navy Drive, and approximately a quarter mile of multistory buildings — mostly apartments above retail — on Joyce Street. On Joyce Street, the project is broken into three distinct sections, with a public plaza and ice rink planned between two of the sections. The total square footage of the project is approximately 2.3 million, including 300,000 square feet of street-level retail with 500 residential apartments directly above commercial. Post Properties will build the residential units. Pentagon Row, designed by RTKL, is convenient to automobile traffic and accessible by mass transit. The retail development includes a total of six retail anchors, as well as an array of specialty and convenience shops, restaurants, and entertainment venues. The project’s retail space is now 85 percent leased. Harris Teeter, a 45,000-square-foot supermarket, will be the first to open its doors, within the first quarter of 2001. Other retailers are scheduled to open throughout the year. supermarket anchors king farm center In Rockville, Maryland, the town center of King Farm, designed by Lessard Architectural Group, will open its first building by the end of 2000, a 54,000-square-foot Safeway supermarket. The remaining seven buildings in the village center will open between January and April of 2001. The town center, with 125,000 square feet of stores and 50 apartments, will form the heart of the 430-acre traditional neighborhood development. The focus is on convenience retail, including a video store, dry cleaners, hair salon, spa, jeweler, wine and beer store, and several restaurants. Mixed-use buildings with apartments above retail will be grouped around a town square. Liner buildings will activate the street on two sides of the Safeway. This latter feature is perhaps the most innovative aspect of the town center. The 3,200-unit King Farm is planned to include 2.2 million square feet of office space within walking distance of the town center. A station for the District of Columbia Metro system is adjacent to the project. The master planner for King Farm is Torti Gallas/CHK. The developer is King Farm Associates, an operating entity within the Penrose Group.