Vizcaya under way on Salamanca site

Five years after the nation’s largest builder suffered a setback when its first new urban development was rejected, the project has come back with a new developer and new design. Vizcaya, a 160-acre traditional neighborhood development designed by Rosello, Balboa & Lordi (RBL), is breaking ground in Dade County, Florida. The new developer is Transeastern Homes, led by Jose Boschetti and Art Falcone. The previously rejected project was called Salamanca, submitted by Pulte Homes and designed by Duany Plater-Zyberk & Company (DPZ). Leading new urbanist Andres Duany pronounced the new design “excellent.” Vizcaya is different in many ways from Salamanca — yet similarities carry through. Like the previous plan, Vizcaya has excellent edges that urbanize the perimeter of the half-mile-square site and integrate the project with its surroundings. Most TNDs fail to achieve that level of connectivity. The town center in Vizcaya is located at the same (northeast) corner, but is substantially different in shape and, if anything, achieves stronger enclosure than the previous plan. Another powerful element of Vizcaya is a 1,200-student K-12 charter school in the southeast quadrant. The layout is radically different from typical public schools built and is reminiscent of a section of a classic college campus plan from the early 20th century. The school site was sold to “one of the largest charter school owner/operators in the State of Florida,” says George Rosello of RBL, who did not disclose the name of the firm. The school operator will use the building footprint shown in the plan, he says. At 1,256 units, Vizcaya is slightly denser than Salamanca, which was turned down, ironically, because of citizen concerns over density. The town center includes 172,000 square feet of retail/commercial and 319 residential units in the form of lofts and condominiums over retail, and live-work dwellings. Three hundred units are expected to be under construction by the first quarter of 2007, Rosello says. u