Commercial Architecture June 2017 - 10

FEATURE

mixed use
talking about driverless cars and how they're going to change the
world. The reality is maybe there won't be a driver, but you've still got
to park that car somewhere. If anything, parking requirements have
increased."
That doesn't mean parking must be approached in strictly traditional ways.
"Parking doesn't have to look like parking," Holcomb said. "The
architecture to screen can be very interesting, and some clients are
willing to spend money to use a deck to celebrate what the facade of
the building can do. In some situations, parking isn't allowed on the
ground level anymore because it doesn't activate the street like restaurants, shops, and public spaces do, so it's placed above or below that
street level."
Obviously, the parking equation is evolving. "As the next generation of urban dwellers relies more on ride sharing, their parking needs
reduce significantly. Architecturally, the residential or office tower
over a 3-to-8 story parking plinth is more avoidable than it was five
years ago, especially as cities incentivize parking reductions which, in
turn, increase leasable areas. At street level, this translates to less imposing, more well-scaled design and improved building visibility in
the neighborhood, Young commented.
"From an architectural perspective, in new or renovated buildings, when you are trying to stack some combination of living, working, and commercial spaces, structural spans will typically be at odds
with one another, especially if indoor parking is intended to tuck
underneath," Young added.
Parking drives everything, Form4's Marx agreed. In the past, architects just designed the parking and figured out what was left over,
but you could still see what was just a big garage underneath and the
buildings were on top of that, he explained. "Now, one of the things
they've been trying desperately to do is lower the parking levels, and
people have been doing very innovative things like trying to tie the
ferry system in the Bay back to the downtowns and back to Caltrain,"
he said.
But parking demand could change, Marx continued. "A couple of
our clients, big technology clients, have asked in large master-plan
projects if we can make the parking garages convertible to office or
residential in the future. They believe that the parking counts will go
down because people will stop driving. There is a trend where a lot of
Millennials apparently don't want to own cars, and some don't even

Located in the Chicago North Shore
suburb of Highland Park, Renaissance
Place is a mixed-used and retail development that reflects the desire of many
older, affluent suburbs to maintain the
feel of a main street in their downtown
areas. Designed by Epstein Chicago,
the project includes 150,000 sq. ft. of
retail space topped by 100,000 sq. ft.
of residential and office space plus underground parking for 250 cars. Photo
courtesy Epstein.

on eating out than buying groceries. They don't drive or have to
commute to a job five days a week. However they still want to live
near everything that makes their city a unique amenity to them. Ur-

CITIES VS. SUBURBS

ban, mixed-use development supports that type of lifestyle and can

Mixed-use has long been associated with city neighborhoods, while

bring the live, work, and play uses together in a tighter circle. This

suburbs tended to have sharply defined residential, shopping, office,

creates higher-density living situations which help to support long-

and industrial zones. Asked if this were changing, Russ Holcomb

term, local commercial enterprises," he said.

answered, "It depends on how you define mixed use. From our experience, even suburban clients are looking for diverse, new spaces

PARKING AND TRANSPORTATION

that work in new ways to encourage people to gather and collaborate.

The idea of mixed-use developments is to attract a variety of people

Even the criteria for the traditional suburban research-park lab has

to the neighborhood to work, shop, live, and be entertained. What

changed. We see clients looking for opportunities to build connec-

to do with their private automobiles-if they drive-has always been a

tive synergies for tenants and users, both across the businesses within

concern. Public transportation is another component that must be

a development and with the site's landscape."

factored in as a result of changing driving habits and preferences.

COMMERCI A L A RCHI T EC T URE

JUNE 2017

get driver's licenses."

Selling the idea of higher-density mixed-use projects to suburban-

"Parking has been a driving demand for projects," observed Hol-

ites is not without its challenges, however. "There was a developer

comb. "At just about every other meeting I walk into, people are

trend, not so long ago, to redevelop failing, '60s- and '70s-era subur-

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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Commercial Architecture June 2017