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Case Study |
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How Do We Retrofit Suburbs to Fit Housing Trends?
City Walk in Woodbury, Minnesota
Situation/Summary of Issues
In a sea of commercial big box superstores and parking lots, City Walk in Woodbury attempts to be an oasis of charm. Despite apparent shortcomings, the mixed use development adds an important point of view to the dilemma of retrofitting the suburbs.
A suburb in the east metro, Woodbury’s population will predictably grow in coming years; however, smaller household sizes and aging populations are now giving city officials and the development community cause to re-evaluate the type of housing that will accommodate the new demographic. For decades moderately priced single family homes were the modus-operandi, but new demand will be for multifamily and senior housing, a trend anticipated in the recently adopted Woodbury 2030 Comprehensive Plan.
As cheap energy dwindles, the high costs of transportation will transform Woodbury into a place where people will wish to live and work. With 84 percent of the population currently driving to work alone, the long range proposed I-94 East light rail/bus rapid transit corridor will help; however, significant improvement in the households-jobs ratio will be necessary. It’s off to a good start too: 22 percent of residents work in the city, up from 12 percent just a little more than a decade ago. But achieving a meaningful balance suggests city officials, the development community and the public will need to embrace the smart growth principle of mixed use.
Solution
In 2001 Orlando based LeCesse Development Corp. approached Woodbury with a proposal for a mixed use neighborhood incorporating “New Urban” design principles. City Walk, as it came to be called, was approved as a Planned Unit Development (PUD) by the City Council in 2004 and included 529 multifamily units (41 affordable units) and 650,000 square feet of retail, office and commercial space.
Through many years of back and forth wrangling between city officials and LeCesse, the result is a development that incorporates new urbanism concepts such as pedestrian friendly streetscapes, interconnected trail systems, vertical mixed land uses and coordinated architectural designs.
Progress/Evaluation
- It does the best with the hand it was dealt. An attempt at retrofitting suburbs in a way that better accommodates recent and projected housing trends.
- City Walk achieves a mix of uses, with a number of residential types and a range of retail services, but admittedly mixing uses is not a panacea for suburban ways of life. In fact, many of the criticisms of suburban style sprawl still largely exist, namely a reliance on automobiles.
- Despite blending residential and commercial uses in the same neighborhood, the retail jobs offered in the neighborhood may not earn workers enough money to live in the community.
- Still, developments like City Walk present people with choice and the ability to choose a lifestyle in which they could walk to work, to the grocery store or exercise in their own backyard.
- Poised to be in a good position for regional access if I-94 light rail/BRT ever becomes a reality.
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