Next generation Florida project includes streetcar

Many streetcar lines were built in America in the early part of the 20th Century as part of development projects — transit paid for through the sale of homes. This has been called “development-oriented transit.” In the last decade, we have seen a revival of streetcar lines near urban downtowns — most built to spur economic development.

Now we have, perhaps, the first large-scale modern US greenfield development proposed with a streetcar. The plans for Restoration in Edgewater, Florida — approved by the municipality September 24 — include a 3- to 4-mile internal streetcar line estimated to cost about $10 million per mile. That’s much less than cities typically spend for a streetcar system, because the plan avoids many of the street closure and reconstruction costs associated with placing transit on an existing urban street, says Eliza Harris, project manager with Canin Associates in Orlando.

With 8,500 planned housing units, Restoration is close in size to Celebration in Orlando. It’s one of the biggest new urban projects ever approved, and certainly the biggest post-recession TND (traditional neighborhood development) planned to date. Planning for Restoration began prior to the housing crash, Harris notes, so it could be considered a holdover from another era. Or, with its combination of wetlands protection and frugal infrastructure — even including the streetcar — it could be indicative of more efficient greenfield developments in the future.

“Because of the regulatory environment and changing demographics, it had to be really forward thinking in design to survive and compete with what is already built,” Harris says.

Edgewater is a mostly automobile-oriented Central Florida coastal town. The 5,187-acre development site is located on the west side of Route 95 — the opposite side to most existing development. The project is still a long way from getting underway. The municipal approval stipulates construction to begin within four years, but details such as who will do the construction, design the buildings, or finance various phases of the project have yet to be determined. The developer is GS Florida.

Once the project begins, Restoration is projected to have a 20-year buildout. The full streetcar would likely wait until the second half of the project, but a demonstration system could be installed early on for marketing purposes, Harris says.

Frugal infrastructure

How could such a massive project, with its own internal rail line, be considered frugal? Restoration has gone through several designs, and current plans have been compared to a previous version for environmental impact and cost. The savings are eye-opening. A 2006 plan is typical of Florida master-planned development, although a little more progressive. There’s a traditional neighborhood development (TND), a golf course, senior housing, and a regional commercial center spread out on much of the site. More than half of the site is preserved — but the open space is broken up into many pieces (see bottom plan on page 10).

The new plan puts all development on one contiguous area covering 27 percent of the parcel (see top plan on page 10). This design eliminates 47 miles of thoroughfares — saving the developer $127 million. Landscaping costs are reduced by $68 million. Total infrastructure savings of $199 million dwarf the projected cost of the streetcar. Despite the size of the project (approximately 160-170 urban blocks), the layout is fairly simple. It’s not a quite basic grid, but close. The development and construction will be more efficient than in pre-recession new urban master-planned communities. The numerous parks are mostly small and don’t disrupt the grid. The stormwater system doubles as public waterfront.

Traffic impact fees will be significantly reduced due to the transit system and walkable design. An estimated 50 percent of the trips will be captured internally, with a 41 percent cut in vehicle miles traveled. Gas savings by residents are estimated at $12 million a year.

Essentially, the streetcar is an amenity — like a golf course in pre-housing-bust days. Residents would likely pay some streetcar operating costs through homeowners fees, Harris says.

For economic development reasons, the city is a big supporter of the project. So is the Audubon Society — an organization that opposed previous versions of the plan. The new plan sacrifices some lower-quality wetlands in order to preserve more contiguous natural land. The more common Florida technique is to avoid wetlands — but in doing so spread out over a larger area and have a greater impact on the environment. “Both humans and animals are happier in contiguous rather than fragmented environments,” Harris explains.

Restoration is laid out on 1,315 acres on both sides of a transit corridor. About half of the houses will be multifamily and attached single-family focused along this corridor. Commercial, retail, office, civic (including schools), and medical-related development totaling 3.2 million acres will also be focused here and in the town center on the south end of the streetcar line. On either side of the corridor will be neighborhoods of small-lot single-family housing that will comprise about 50 percent of the total units.

The entire project is designed to be walkable and bikable, with relatively narrow residential streets feeding into the wide boulevard — broken up with median and slip lanes to maintain human-scale crossing distances and slow traffic on the edges. That’s the plan: Despite the support from the city and environmental groups, getting approval for narrower streets from the county Department of Transportation is a struggle that lies ahead for Restoration. See the cross-section of the transit boulevard below.

The negotiations for approval of this project have required the developer to enact a form-based code — which is in the works based on the SmartCode.

Phasing for the project will likely focus on single-family housing at first, and the initial mixed-use can be built on a small scale — with one- to three-story buildings, Harris says. In later phases, buildings along the transit corridor and town center are planned at six to eight stories.