Mixed-Success Predicted for High-Rise, Mixed-Use Suburban Developments

With occupancy rates rising faster in urban than suburban locations, some suburbs are remaking themselves into mixed-use communities with hi-rise office and residential towers; Tysons Corner, Va. and Research Triangle Park, N.C. among them.

1 minute read

January 21, 2014, 7:00 AM PST

By Irvin Dawid


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As noted here many times, demographic changes in the workforce are key to understanding the movement to create more urban environments.

In this article, Eliot Brown writes how some auto-oriented office parks are planning to convert to walkable, mixed-use job centers. While Tysons Corner may be the best example, Brown clears that it is part of a nation-wide urban planning movement.

"Planners in places like Bellevue, Wash., and White Flint, Md., also are engaging in large-scale makeovers with mixed-use towers as a response to a generation of young workers who like downtowns and employer preferences shifting away from suburban campuses. 

Another bastion of isolated office parks, the 7,000-acre Research Triangle Park in North Carolina, recently revamped its future development plans to encourage retail and housing, which had been prohibited there until 2012.

Brown adds a cautionary note. "It's still too early to tell whether these transformations will succeed," he notes, about the plans that "try to convert sprawling areas built for car-dependent commuters and shoppers into 24-hour walkable communities." Ed McMahon, a senior fellow at the Urban Land Institute, a Washington-based real-estate think, elaborates:

"There's probably more plans for suburban development like [Tysons Corner] than there are going to be successful projects."

Monday, January 20, 2014 in The Wall Street Journal - U.S.

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