Rockville Town Square in Rockville, Maryland is a 12.5 acre mixed-use development that, despite being built in 2007 right as the housing crisis happened, is a raging success. Simmons Buntin looks at what developers did right.
Rockville Town Square replaced a failed mall with a transit-oriented development that features "a broad town plaza, state-of-the-art library and arts and business innovation center, and pedestrian-oriented shops and restaurants-with condominiums and apartments above."
An extensive public process paved the way for the development, with a new master plan for downtown completed in 2001. The project was envisioned as a cooperation between public and private entities to create a downtown that Rockville never had. It centers around a brand-new public plaza, which Buntin describes as "...designed to encourage seating and gatherings, formal and otherwise, and like other successful New Urban developments, fosters chance encounters."
Read the full story: Unsprawl Case Study: Rockville, MD
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