Mixed-use building gives to the public realm

A six-story, 273-unit apartment building with ground-floor retail is proposed near a transit stop on Connecticut Avenue in Washington, DC. The Torti Gallas and Partners building, called Park Van Ness, has an appealing design with nods to Art Deco, notes the blog Greater Greater Washington. What's even better about this building is that it creates a terminating vista at the end of a cross-street, Yuma Street, with an archway leading into a plaza overlooking a park. The building acknowledges the vista with a view of nature framed by architecture and makes the pedestrian experience more interesting by breaking up the large building into two halves. It is not clear whether the plaza will be private or public, but this single building contributes to the public realm more than usual.

See the following two images for how this will work:

Connecticut Avenue is a major thoroughfare through Northwest Washington leading downtown and is lined by residential buildings and mixed-use districts. Washington Metro's Red Line follows Connecticut, and the Van Ness station is short distance away from the building proposed by developer Developer BF Saul. The building will have 226 parking spaces — less than one per unit. On-street parking is available and there are plenty of options for walking, bicycling, and transit.

It's a good example of multifamily development, which is booming in the DC area right now.

For more in-depth coverage: 

• Subscribe to Better! Cities & Towns to read all of the articles (print+online) on implementation of greener, stronger, cities and towns.

• Get the January-February 2012 issue. Topics: Made for Walking, walking audits, Takin' it to the streets, Queens development weathers Sandy, Shared space taken to a new level, Streetscape spurs downtown turnaround, Florida streets manual gets traditional neighborhood chapter, Is better parking lot design enough?, Cities in small metros growing, Redesign arterial streets for pedestrians.

• Get New Urbanism: Best Practices Guide, packed with more than 800 informative photos, plans, tables, and other illustrations, this book is the best single guide to implementing better cities and towns.