Trails, greens, and housing trending for retrofit
The suburban built environment has symbolized America since the 1950s, and it desperately needs an upgrade. Many malls, commercial strips, and office parks are struggling or dying, unable to compete with the Internet and hurt by remote work.
Architectural professors June Williamson and Ellen Dunham-Jones have been researching, tracking, writing, and planning in the suburban retrofit field since 2008. More than 2,500 retrofit projects are built or underway nationwide, and the collaborators discussed the latest trends to identify and redevelop aging suburban sites in an On the Park Bench webinar.
Anything that gets people out of their cars and buildings is a strong amenity in this “work from home” age, Dunham-Jones explains. Connections to nature, urbanity, and alternative transportation are attractive in a tight job market. This reality affects suburban retrofit in three important ways, she says:
- The post-pandemic emphasis is to go from indoors to outdoors. Many retailers want to be along a sidewalk in a more urban, walkable condition, which fits into the “experiential retail” trend.
- Town greens are essential in a mixed-use development. Even developments that don’t have any residential—but are still mixed-use—are building greens.
- Trail-oriented development is very big. That trend has been building for some time, as mixed-use follows multi-use trails.
Due to rising costs for materials and construction, efficiency is gaining importance in suburban retrofit. The housing capacity is enormous along commercial-strip corridors, which are found in cities and towns of all sizes in every part of the US. These commercial strips are suburban fabric geared to automobiles from the start, but their potential for housing is tremendous. One problem for developers is identifying the right properties, and cities and metropolitan planning agencies can help using credit card and cell phone data. Such data can pinpoint low-intensity sites with little commercial activity near transit stops, says Williamson.
Because many big box stores can’t compete with the Internet, mixed-use development needs to cluster around intersections and other nodes, Dunham-Jones says.
Corridors are expensive to redevelop—especially if thoroughfares are completely transformed, which usually means a below-ground reconstruction of water and sewer lines that multiplies costs and adds years to the timeframe. A less-expensive option is surface redevelopment that keeps current curbs, gutters, and utilities in place—that was done in Lancaster, California, one of the most impressive suburban retrofit projects in the US.
Bus rapid transit has become the transit option of choice for suburban corridors because light rail has become too expensive. More cities are choosing to become the master developers of mall and strip mall sites, which gives the public more control over the plan, buildout, public spaces, and uses of the project. Downtown Westminster, Colorado, is a great example.
Finally, housing is becoming more important in suburban retrofit. The key to housing is affordability and reducing dependence on the automobile, Williamson says. The latter is critical as suburbs become home to more low-to-moderate-income residents. The suburbs were built for driving everywhere, but these households can’t afford that, so they are forced to walk in dangerous conditions. Reducing automobile dependence in the suburbs can vastly improve the safety and health of diverse income groups.
Suburbs are also short on places for social interaction, and retrofit projects—especially those with sidewalks, greens, and trails—provide more spots for gathering and active living. That, in turn, has been shown to improve health.
While retrofit mostly occurs on commercial properties, zoning reform boosts the potential for incremental change in residential areas. Many cities and states are reforming R1 single-family zoning to allow multiple units or accessory dwellings.
Williamson and Dunham-Jones will be in Seaside on February 8 to receive the Seaside Prize. They are co-authors of two books on suburban retrofit: Retrofitting Suburbia: Urban Design Solutions for Redesigning Cities and Case Studies in Retrofitting Suburbia: Urban Design Strategies for Urgent Challenges.
