Missing middle combines cottages, mixed-use
Village on the Bluff is located along the western shore of the Wilmington River 5 miles Southeast of Downtown Savannah, Georgia. The site is a narrow infill parcel running between two streets with split zoning—single-family residential on one and commercial on the other, in the small waterfront downtown of Thunderbolt, a close-in suburb of the historic coastal city.
Houses on Bannon Avenue and a three-story mixed-use building fronting River Drive resolve the two zoning categories. A small courtyard of one-bedroom and studio cottages is set on the site’s interior. A lane through the site connects the small buildings, including an accessory dwelling above a garage. Urban design for this infill development is by Tolar Anderson Kim, who won a Missing Middle Merit Award in the 2023 Urban Guild Awards.
The half-acre project includes nine living spaces of studio, one-bedroom, and two-bedroom units and a storefront in a mixed-use building. The development achieves close to 18 units per acre, despite 20 surface parking spaces placed throughout—avoiding a parking lot. The parking was driven by the city code, but the site could have accommodated even more development if less land had been devoted to parking. The commercial building includes two parking spaces parallel to the street and a generous triple-decker porch that makes an impressive statement as the public face of the development. Porches are a prominent feature of most buildings.
Village on the Bluff is made up largely of a type of cottages that are descended from Katrina Cottages, created in response to Hurricane Katrina. Village on the Bluff opened in the fall of 2021, built by Omega Construction’s Georgia Division. “It's a model for middle America and smaller tier cities where the land prices are not so high that higher density is required,” says David Kim of Tolar Anderson Kim.
Trilith, a traditional neighborhood development (TND) in Fayetteville, Georgia, was Urban Guild’s winner in Design Excellence, Urban Design. I have written before on Trilith, which won a CNU Charter Award in 2021, and is designed by Lew Oliver Inc. Trilith is a new town of 1,400 homes and nearly 400,000 square feet of commercial space, adjacent and connected to Marvel Studios, the state’s major film producer. The living spaces include 600 single-family houses, 100 townhouses, and apartments. “The urban design for these 235 acres is rooted in preservation and creation of natural amenities, pedestrianism, the human-scale experience, excellent design, and support for the storytellers at the nearby movie studios,” says the Urban Guild.
The Orion Amphitheater in Huntsville, Alabama, by David M. Schwarz Architects, won the Urban Guild Award for Excellence in Civic Design. “This project is an 8,000-seat amphitheater located within a 40-acre park, the venue is a key component of the MidCity development, a new pedestrian-oriented mixed-use community constructed on a former shopping mall site,” according to the Urban Guild.
