The first ever Smart Growth Showcase is designed to connect shovel-ready projects that represent best practices and innovations in smart growth development with investment partners that can bring them to life.
While representatives from each of the five featured will be at the LOCUS Leadership Summit next week, LOCUS is giving you a sneak peek of the projects today. Each project was selected for its potential to positively impact the community, whether by preserving affordable housing, making transit more accessible, or combining a mix of uses to spur economic development. Learn more about this year’s featured projects below.
If you’d like to be a part of making these projects happen, register for the 2019 LOCUS Leadership Summit today to meet the participants and learn more, or reach out to locus@locusdevelopers.org to get connected.
Sloss Connectivity Project
Sloss Real Estate
Birmingham, Alabama
The Sloss Connectivity Project aims to transform this obsolete industrial area into a vibrant mixed-use neighborhood called the Sloss Industrial Arts District (SIDA). Currently, the area is home to the old Sloss Furnaces which were once the largest manufacturers of pig iron in the world and are today a unique National Historic Landmark. The land around the furnaces offers ample opportunities for redevelopment.
The project also sits along the route of Birmingham Xpress, a bus rapid transit line that is currently under development. With improvements to bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure, access to the new Xpress service, and creative placemaking, the Sloss Connectivity Project will catalyze future development in the area, including mixed income and workforce housing.
The redevelopment of the Swift Factory is a key piece of the North Hartford Revitalization Initiative. Image courtesy of Community Solutions.
Living Long Wharf Food Terminal and Market District
City of New Haven
New Haven, Connecticut
The New Haven Food Terminal, a 20-acre site on the New Haven Harbor, contains a mix of uses, including meat packing, restaurants, and the renowned Long Wharf Theatre. Located in walking distance of Union Station and highly visible from I-95, this historic industrial zone is poised for transformation into a vibrant transit-oriented mixed-use neighborhood. The vision plan amplifies the job-rich industrial uses while creating livable density. It also addresses coastal resiliency and sustainability through investments in flood protection, green infrastructure, and mobility.
The Market District, anchored by the Food Terminal, is only one piece of the Living Long Wharf Responsible Growth Plan that encompasses five unique districts that encourage sustainable mixed-use development and will reconnect the city to the coast.
The Ferry Street Project will rehabilitate six buildings in a historic mill complex in Easthampton, Massachusetts. Image courtesy of Brahman Holdings.
Watkins Street Revival
Collier Construction
Chattanooga, Tennessee
Today, Watkins Street is a case study in urban blight. Anchored by the decaying Standard Coosa Mill, this 20 acre brownfield and empty 280,000 sq ft mill replete with asbestos and lead paint cast a long shadow over the area. Population decline, 9.5% unemployment, and a 2016 area-median income of $29,000 mark this community as significantly distressed. Just three miles from city-center and the thriving Southside revitalization, Watkins Street represents the “other Chattanooga”, a community with limited access to support services, quality education, and the glory of the “Gig City” technology-focused entrepreneurship that’s generating new jobs in Chattanooga.
The Watkins Street Revival incorporates a development concept that will effectively address the environmental issues, provide an urban infill model already tested in multiple Collier communities, and prevent rampant gentrification. The Watkins Street Revival will be a vibrant, socio-economic and racially diverse community that will produce hundreds of new residential units for middle- and low-income residents. Watkins Street Revival will be a community marked by critical infrastructure improvements to walkways, green space, and the local public elementary school, and a non-profit campus providing job training, education, social services, and a “community hub”.