Charter Award 2006 Winners Set High Mark

April 3, 2006

 

CNU Announces 2006 Charter Award Honorees: Seventeen Projects Set High Mark for Urban Design and Development

 

 

Chicago – April 4, 2005 – After reviewing more than 160 submission for how well they embody and advance the principles of the Charter of the New Urbanism, a jury of accomplished urbanists has selected 17 projects for New Urbanism’s highest honor, recognition as Charter Award winners.

 

The 17 projects are diverse both in location and type –- hailing from three continents and taking forms such as affordable housing, transit-oriented development, high-density infill plans, wilderness preservation, freeway-taming strategies, and new town development. In architectural expression, they range from Carolina low-country vernacular to contextual modernism. Yet despite these differences, the projects share a common commitment to first-rate placemaking and the community-strengthening principles of the Charter.

 

In a year when new urbanist charrettes and follow-up efforts are bringing hope for renewal to Gulf Coast areas destroyed by hurricanes, this year’s Charter Awards honorees use design excellence and the principles of the Charter to improve other challenging contexts, including:

 

• The threatened farmland outside Paris, where an elegantly designed, compact new town on the TGV line is helping the French government implement a managed growth strategy (Cooper Robertson and Partners).

• An economically declining small town on Virginia’s Eastern Shore where new low-cost homes on an extension of the town fabric shelter 52 households and a community farm creates new economic opportunities (Cox, RBGC Architecture, Research and Urbanism).

• The sprawling 8000+ acres of the US Army's Fort Belvoir, where twelve walkable urban villages are reinventing military housing at the base and creating a new spirit of community for military families (Torti Gallas and Partners).

• Vancouver’s high-intensity downtown, where towers have proliferated as street life has grown more lively and humane under the guidance of a central area plan featuring a “Living First” strategy (City of Vancouver).

• The outskirts of Cabinda, Angola where a town plan replaces haphazard growth with a livable town while preserving coveted forests (Gary White and Associates).

• Formerly abandoned, graffiti-strewn space in downtown Columbus, OH, now reconnected to the city by a modern-day Ponte Vecchio, a retail bridge crossing I-670 (Meleca Architecture).

• Fourteen acres near the heart of Tucson where culturally and environmentally sensitive infill development is knitting the downtown together again after ill-fated urban renewal efforts swept away previous generations of urban fabric (Moule Polyzoides, Architects and Urbanists).

• The automobile-oriented core of the model suburban community of Columbia, MD, which will finally become the vibrant town center town founders had hoped for thanks to a master plan calling for higher densities, small urban blocks, and public spaces (Design Collective).

• The downtown and jewelry district of Providence, RI, now severed by an interstate freeway, but soon to be joined under a plan that re-routes the freeway, reconnects urban fabric, and promotes infill development that strengthens the city’s relationship to its waterfront (Sasaki Associates).

 

Other honored projects include Boston’s Newest Smart Growth Corridor (Goody, Clancy and Associates), Crewkerne-Easthams Architectural and Design Code (Prince’s Foundation for the Built Environment), Martin Luther King Jr. Plaza Revitalization (Torti Gallas and Partners), Historic Front Street (Cook + Fox Architects), the Village at Palmetto Bluff (Historical Concepts),Mission Meridian (Moule Polyzoides, Architects and Urbanists), and Arnhem City Center (Robert A.M. Stern Architects). An award in the student/faculty category went to the University of Maryland for Hatchett Point in Old Lyme, Conn. and an honorable mention went to the University of Miami for its hurricane-relief housing submission, Mississippi Mobile Homes. Learn more about this year’s winners.

 

On behalf of CNU and its board of directors, CNU President John Norquist congratulated all 2006 honorees for their impressive achievements. “Many, many project teams set out to create projects that live up to the principles of the Charter, but very few actually achieve that standard,” said Norquist. “The Charter stands as both a tough challenge and a potentially valuable promise. For those who commit to excellence and achieve it, the benefits are enduring places and stronger communities.”

 

The winners are awarded in three categories reflecting the three scales of the Charter of the New Urbanism. They will receive their awards at a lunchtime ceremony in Providence, RI on Friday, June 2 during Fourteenth Congress for the New Urbanism, which runs from June 1-4.

 

The 2006 Charter Awards Jury is:

Dhiru Thadani, Jury Chair, Principal, Ayers/Saint/Gross, Architects + Urban Planners

Peter Calthorpe, Principal, Calthorpe Associates

Rick Chellman, Principal, TND Engineering

Peter Hetzel, Principal, Peter Hetzel Architecture + Urbanism

Linda Keane, AIA, Architect and Urban Planner, STUDIO 1032, and Faculty, School of the Art Institute of Chicago

Léon Krier, Architect and Urban Planner

Barbara Littenberg, Partner, Peterson/Littenberg Architecture and Urban Design

Susan Parham, Chair, Council for European Urbanism, and Director, CAG Consultants

Carroll William Westfall, Frank Montana Professor, University of Notre Dame

Todd Zimmerman, Co-Managing Director, Zimmerman/Volk Associates, Inc.

 

CNU is the leading organization advancing walkable, human-scaled neighborhood development as the building block of well-defined cities and towns.The Charter Awards program is CNU’s main vehicle for recognizing work that best embodies and advances the principles of the Charter of the New Urbanism, defines the essential principles of New Urbanism and the qualities of coherent places from the scale of the region to the block and building.

 

See images and descriptions of this year's award winners.

 

For more information, contact Stephen Filmanowicz, CNU Communications Director, 312-551-7300.

 

http://www.cnu.org/news/index.cfm?formAction=press_release_item&press_release_id=83

 

Link to High Street Cap profile: http://cnu.org/about/index.cfm?formAction=project_view&templateInstanceID=852

It indeed is a new "model" for cities.  Columbus should be proud to have it.

columbus is very proud, and there will be more caps to come! hopefully!

NO APPETITE FOR RETAIL

I-670 cap becoming restaurant row

Short North block redefines itself as dining destination

Thursday,  October 11, 2007 3:42 AM

By Amy Saunders, THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

 

After three years of nearly constant transition, the Cap at Union Station is starting to chart a clearer direction: all restaurants, no retail.  Once Tropical Trends and Thomas Jeffrey move out by November, restaurants will rule the shop-free cap, the broadened overpass on which High Street crosses over I-670 in the Short North.  "I think the marketplace is speaking," said local retail analyst Chris Boring of Boulevard Strategies.  "The marketplace is saying it wants more restaurants in that space."  And restaurants with valet service are what seem to work best in an area that's notoriously short on parking.

 

Read more at http://dispatch.com/live/content/business/stories/2007/10/11/cap_business.ART_ART_10-11-07_C10_GQ85BEK.html?sid=101

NOT TROPICAL TRENDS!!!

^Only on the subconcious level

Hyde Park hungry for expansion at Cap

Business First of Columbus

Friday, October 12, 2007

by Dan Eaton, Business First

 

The Cap at Union Station is undergoing its first major tenant shake-up in its three-year life.  Hyde Park Restaurant Systems Inc. plans to take over the entire 12,000-square-foot west building of the North High Street development over Interstate 670.  That'll force Schakolad Chocolate Factory to relocate, while the steakhouse also takes over two vacant spaces.  And on the east side of the Cap, owned by Columbus-based developer Continental Real Estate Cos., two retailers are expected to leave by the end of the year.

 

Read more at http://columbus.bizjournals.com/columbus/stories/2007/10/12/story5.html

From Columbus Underground, a chat with the architect of the I-670 Cap...

http://www.columbusunderground.com/cu-podcast-episode-08-coffee-with-david-meleca

 

"In this week's podcast we meet up with David Meleca, the President of Meleca Architecture, who was the firm responsible for the design of the I-670 cap project over High Street.  David talks about the history of the project, as well as what the future could hold with additional highway caps in the upcoming 70/71 Split Fix project."

 

And some very nice photos of the I-670 Cap from Columbus Underground to go with their interview...

 

 

 

 

 

http://www.columbusunderground.com/cu-podcast-episode-08-coffee-with-david-meleca

Thanks for the link. This was a really fun podcast to do. ;)

 

 

Just curious how successful this project has been? It seems like what was constructed is miles ahead of what's being proposed for Cincinnati's The Banks.

It's been HIGHLY successful.  Restaurants come and go but that's the nature of the Cap.

I'm a big fan of Cup O Joe/MoJoe, the coffeeshop/bar-restaurant combo on the NE corner. There are also new Short North kiosks on the Cap, which is technically in Downtown, just FYI. It gets quite a bit of a labeling overlap, as is understandable. Here's one in front of Hyde Park Steakhouse (zoom in on the very bottom, *wink wink*).

 

 

 

It's been HIGHLY successful. Restaurants come and go but that's the nature of the Cap.

 

+1

 

I'd consider it a huge success. It sounds like the retail rents on the cap are fairly steep, but it's a premium location being situated between the Short North, North Market, Arena District and Convention Center, so any vacancies are turned around pretty quickly.

 

I honestly hope that the success can be replicated for other highway crossings along The Split in Columbus, but steep rents are going to be a tougher sell everywhere else where the location isn't quite as prime.

The I-670 Cap got a mention in a recent article about habitable bridges making a comeback.  Nice recap of the Cap's history too.

 

The Habitable Bridge, Resurrected

Henry Grabar, The Atlantic Cities

July 30, 2012

 

Back in the mid- to late-1990s, Columbus, Ohio, faced a familiar urban problem.  The city’s vibrant High Street was split by the trench of Interstate 670, separating the hip Short North area from the Convention Center and downtown.  For years, American cities like Boston, Phoenix, Seattle, Washington D.C., and Dallas have been hiding urban highways beneath decks, caps or lids supporting parkland.  But Columbus tried something new: it hired architect David Meleca to transform the drab overpass into what by all accounts was America’s first habitable bridge, modeled after Florence's Ponte Vecchio, which debuted in 2004.  Despite the fact that eight lanes of traffic run below and around it, the new block of High Street, lined with shops and restaurants, has proved largely indistinguishable from those around it.

 

READ MORE: http://www.theatlanticcities.com/design/2012/07/habitable-bridge-resurrected/2744/#

For once, this is something I wish Mpls had that Cbus does and not the other way around (and I know exactly where these would have the best impact here). With the investment the city has put into RiverSouth and the private investment by an unprecedented surge in entrepreneurs across the bridge in the Brewery District it couldn't be more obvious how necessary a cap there is to connect the two areas together and unify the neighborhood (and GV for all intents and purposes) with Downtown: too bad the city was/is willing to let the state interfere with the potential there for years to come. Now DC's plan to build an entire business district on a retail cap 3 blocks long is very impressive, but also may overshadow Columbus' despite having done it first long ago. The city might want to not only live up to the Arch City moniker, but Cap City as well: it is the capital city in Ohio and one of the largest state capitals, so it at least has a shot at claiming to be "the" Cap City.

i think seattle's freeway park has a good decade or so on the columbus cap.

 

far as i know that was the original cap.

 

regardless, hell yeah for more caps!

 

Seattle's Freeway Park is not for commercial use.  There are other examples of park caps prior to Columbus' but Columbus' was groundbreaking in modern times for commercial use of an overpass.

For once, this is something I wish Mpls had that Cbus does and not the other way around (and I know exactly where these would have the best impact here). With the investment the city has put into RiverSouth and the private investment by an unprecedented surge in entrepreneurs across the bridge in the Brewery District it couldn't be more obvious how necessary a cap there is to connect the two areas together and unify the neighborhood (and GV for all intents and purposes) with Downtown: too bad the city was/is willing to let the state interfere with the potential there for years to come. Now DC's plan to build an entire business district on a retail cap 3 blocks long is very impressive, but also may overshadow Columbus' despite having done it first long ago. The city might want to not only live up to the Arch City moniker, but Cap City as well: it is the capital city in Ohio and one of the largest state capitals, so it at least has a shot at claiming to be "the" Cap City.

 

I'll argue that the cap has worked so well that it highlights just how much of a dead zone the Convention Center is.

That and the restaurants and bars directly across the street. What's worse is the divide between this area and Gay St that can't be mended since there are government buildings and Nationwide Plaza serving as a bigger dead zone on both sides of High. Still, it wouldn't hurt it the CC was retrofitted and I'm pretty surprised, now that I think about it, that the city hasn't spent tax dollars to revamp it. After all, convention centers everywhere seem to get a pass when tons of public money are thrown at them

For once, this is something I wish Mpls had that Cbus does and not the other way around

Good to know.

 

(and I know exactly where these would have the best impact here)

No doubt.

 

With the investment the city has put into RiverSouth and the private investment by an unprecedented surge in entrepreneurs across the bridge in the Brewery District

Nothing "unprecedented" about the current development in the Brewery District.  The 12-story office tower at 500 S. Front Street was finished in 1990.  Brewers Yard Apartments and Phase I of Liberty Place Apartments were finished in the early 2000's.

 

it couldn't be more obvious how necessary a cap there is to connect the two areas together and unify the neighborhood (and GV for all intents and purposes) with Downtown: too bad the city was/is willing to let the state interfere with the potential there for years to come.

Which is why the city pressed ODOT to include caps and the ability to cap in the I-70/71 downtown freeway reconstruction.  They now need to wait until that construction comes to pass (just like the original I-670 Cap, which was part of ODOT's I-670 reconstruction project in the early 2000's).  Unless you think the City should eminent domain I-70 & I-71?  Because you do realize the Feds/ODOT own the interstate right-of-way and all rights to build over it?

 

Now DC's plan to build an entire business district on a retail cap 3 blocks long is very impressive, but also may overshadow Columbus' despite having done it first long ago.

Good for DC.  This isn't a competition you know.

 

The city might want to not only live up to the Arch City moniker, but Cap City as well: it is the capital city in Ohio and one of the largest state capitals, so it at least has a shot at claiming to be "the" Cap City.

As long as they clear it with Minneapolisite first. :roll:

Still, it wouldn't hurt it the CC was retrofitted and I'm pretty surprised, now that I think about it, that the city hasn't spent tax dollars to revamp it.

 

Right. To me it's always made sense to convert the front to usable retail in some capacity.

^ FYI: The Convention Center is owned by the Franklin County Convention Facilities Authority.  The FCCFA is a non-profit organization created by the City of Columbus and Franklin County to manage certain entities, like the Convention Center.

^ FYI: The Convention Center is owned by the Franklin County Convention Facilities Authority.  The FCCFA is a non-profit organization created by the City of Columbus and Franklin County to manage certain entities, like the Convention Center.

 

Their organization could be generating revenues from tenants easily. This is easily the premier city street in all of Ohio.

^That was directed more at Keith then you surf.  He's always going on about "the city" this and "the city" that.  Just confirming what he surely already knew about the FCCFA. :wink:

Wasn't aware of the FCCFA. I was aware they haven't done shit. Also note the unprecedented surge remark was about entrepreneurs, not an office building built one decade and some apartments the next in the Brewery District. And, I'm sure you already know, that leg of the stretch isn't due to be finished for decades unlike the 670 cap due to uncertainty about funding. Cities are based on competition, are hey not? If you're not competitive you're losing residents to other cities. If it wasn't a competition, Columbus, all of it, not just 3/4, would be stuck in the decline of the 80s and all you'd have is German Village and OSU/Clintonville or maybe even less. You wouldn't have new neighborhoods and improvements like the cap to try and offer a competitive, attractive urban environment.

Wasn't aware of the FCCFA. I was aware they haven't done sh!t. Also note the unprecedented surge remark was about entrepreneurs, not an office building built one decade and some apartments the next in the Brewery District. And, I'm sure you already know, that leg of the stretch isn't due to be finished for decades unlike the 670 cap due to uncertainty about funding. Cities are based on competition, are hey not? If you're not competitive you're losing residents to other cities. If it wasn't a competition, Columbus, all of it, not just 3/4, would be stuck in the decline of the 80s and all you'd have is German Village and OSU/Clintonville or maybe even less. You wouldn't have new neighborhoods and improvements like the cap to try and offer a competitive, attractive urban environment.

 

I haven't been on here in forever especially with school and work, but I do check in every now and then.  You're still going at it?  All you still do is bash Columbus?  All you do is still up Minneapolis while bashing Columbus on an urban OHIO website?  Stop! Who cares what your opinion is of Columbus?  It is the constant negativity that gets old.  You ruin threads about how much you hate Columbus.  I don't care about Minneapolis or anything in Minnesota, and I certainly don't care for your pessimistic attitude towards Columbus.  We ALL already know how much you hate Columbus, but yet you still type on here how much of a failure it is.  If you hate it so bad, stop talking about it.  I really don't understand that about you.  Columbus doesn't care about you either.  I went back to Florida twice this past summer, and I am still not looking to join any site talking about the cities there.  Why?  Because I don't care about Florida.  Nor do I care to talk about why I think their cities fail at just about everything they do.  Get over yourself, and stay in Minneapolis.  It is one thing if it was why Columbus doesn't do a certain thing right, but with you it is EVERYTHING.  I still can't believe you are on here putting down Columbus.  GET OVER Columbus!  It's in your post, leave it there.

^ Come now.  Without Minneapolisite, Urban Ohio would have much less comedic parody of actual urban criticism.  You do see his "genius" parody don't you?  It has to be parody, right?  Because no human being could possibly be so lacking in self-awareness and continue posting what he posts, right?  Just consider his latest inspired bit below.

 

Wasn't aware of the FCCFA. I was aware they haven't done sh!t.

Pure comic gold!

Random topic request, but does anyone on this forum have info on the project which "capped" the section of 670 at High Street and created the space for development?

 

I'm part of a group looking at a similar scenario in Cleveland and any info would be appreciated.  Specifically, was it an ODOT project?  Any estimate on the cost or scope?  How was the project done so that actual buildings could be built atop the cap?  How long ago was this done?  Thanks!!!

Random topic request, but does anyone on this forum have info on the project which "capped" the section of 670 at High Street and created the space for development?

 

I'm part of a group looking at a similar scenario in Cleveland and any info would be appreciated.  Specifically, was it an ODOT project?  Any estimate on the cost or scope?  How was the project done so that actual buildings could be built atop the cap?  How long ago was this done?  Thanks!!!

 

I don't have all the information on how exactly it came to be, but it was completed in 2004 at a cost of about $8 million.  I believe it was a collaboration between the city and ODOT when they were rebuilding/expanding 670.  I also know that the bridge was built with extra supports to hold the buildings and was designed to directly connect Downtown with the SN and conceal the highway. 

Random topic request, but does anyone on this forum have info on the project which "capped" the section of 670 at High Street and created the space for development?

 

I'm part of a group looking at a similar scenario in Cleveland and any info would be appreciated.  Specifically, was it an ODOT project?  Any estimate on the cost or scope?  How was the project done so that actual buildings could be built atop the cap?  How long ago was this done?  Thanks!!!

I didn't know if you looked at this already, but there is a thread about this project in the Completed Projects section: Columbus: High Street I-670 Cap.  In that thread there is a post about an interview that the Columbus Underground website did with the design architect for the I-670 Cap (aka The Cap at Union Station) David Meleca of Meleca Architecture at http://www.columbusunderground.com/cu-podcast-episode-08-coffee-with-david-meleca.  That interview might provide some of the info you are looking for.  Contacting David Meleca might also be a good idea.  You can find his contact info at http://www.meleca.com/.  Here's an aerial photo of the I-670 Cap from Meleca's website:

 

 

The Urban Land Institute also has an excellent on-line case study of the I-670 Cap at https://casestudies.uli.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/98/2015/12/C035010.pdf that might provide much of the info you are seeking.

 

My memory of the project is that in the late 1990's, ODOT wanted to widen the existing below-grade I-670 freeway "trench" from 4 to 8 lanes.  Since this widening would affect properties in two national historic districts north of the freeway (Victorian Village and Italian Village which jointly make up "The Short North") ODOT needed to negotiate with them to do the widening project.  Since both neighborhoods and the Short North are well represented, these groups got ODOT to agree to remediate the damage to the Short North in exchange for signing off on the freeway widening.

 

The remediation agreed to was the I-670 Cap Project.  Which is technically two separate "caps".  The best looking one is The Cap at Union Station - the one-story retail building which spans from the downtown side of High Street to the Short North side of High Street over the I-670 freeway.  The second "cap" is one block west at the intersection of Park Street and Goodale Boulevard.  This is visible in the above aerial photo as a large mass of white concrete.  This cap preserves the original location of the Park/Goodale intersection. 

 

The ULI report gives an excellent rundown of the project's details: who owns what, who build what and who paid for what.  Because it was basically a public-private partnership between the Continental Real Estate Company, the City of Columbus, the Ohio Department of Transportation (ODOT), and the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA).  Hope that helps.

 

(Updated link to the ULI Case Study)

I would encourage you to contact Continental Real Estate Company who owns and developed it. From my conversations with representatives and those familiar with the project, while wonderful from a pedestrian/planning perspective, the entire project was immensely difficult to accomplish and is a nightmare to run. See what they have to say on it. Good luck!

great info, thank you everyone