Multi-Housing News - June 2009 - (Page 14)

case study full speed TODs are no longer limited to traditionally urban areas By Jeffrey Steele, Contributing Editor Ken Ryan recalls a recent visit with officials of a Southern California community to discuss transit-oriented development (TOD). Ryan, a TOD proponent and principal with Irvine, Calif.-based KTGY, a multi-discipline design firm of planners and architects, was delighted to learn that the town fathers fully backed the concept and its benefits, such as sustainability, a pedestrian orientation and deemphasis on the ubiquitous automobile. “The town ‘supports’ the idea of using the old train depot as the core of the TOD area, allowing for higher densities to support the concept,” Ryan says, adding with a chuckle. “However, they have limited the ultimate height to three stories.” The preposterous notion of creating the higher density TODs require while limiting buildings to low-rise design points to one of the challenges of creating transit-oriented developments: a fundamentally different way of thinking. Despite such barriers, TODs are being built—and not just in areas where ahead you’d expect they might be most needed. Some, for example, are being designed in Sunbelt states. Midtown Park in the ‘Big D’ Encompassing more than 80 acres, Valencia Capital Management’s Dallas TOD, Midtown Park, is one of the city’s largest infill projects in years. The site had previously been a blighted patch of 2,400 low-rise garden apartments “in various levels of despair,” says Valencia principal Tim Kaiser. Valencia began acquiring the land in 2005, and not long thereafter started abating asbestos and razing the apartments. Seventy-two of the 83 acres have been rezoned in a customized zoning called Planned Development (PD.) “That will allow us to create much greater density,” Kaiser says, noting height limits that had been 36 feet now soar up to 270 feet. “It will be mixed uses, and we can move uses around under the PD as market needs change, giving us great

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Multi-Housing News - June 2009

Multi-Housing News - June 2009
Contents
From the Editor
Executive Insight: Acquisition Strategy
Investment: Construction Conundrum
Property Management: Tech Tools
Strategy: Property Management
Case Study: TOD
Technology: Resident Payments
Turning Over Apartments

Multi-Housing News - June 2009