COVER STORY, JUNE 2008

RE-URBANIZING THE METROPOLIS
Architects design projects to renew and revitalize Texas’ major cities.
Dan Marcec

The world is becoming smaller in many different ways, and one of the key trends in development across the United States is a move to counterbalance suburban sprawl. In this light, some of the major Texas cities continue to embark upon urban renewal and revitalization. Texas Real Estate Business recently spoke with architects designing projects in Dallas, Houston and Austin to gauge a scope of how their specific designs are fitting in with the landscape of each of those cities. They also discuss larger trends in the field of urban architecture in Texas, which are mirroring and merging with ideas from across the U.S. and even across the world.

Projecting the Spotlight on Urban Design

To discuss trends in architecture (or trends in any commercial real estate field for that matter), examining particular developments on the cutting edge of the industry is a good place to start. All of the architects interviewed agreed on many points, but first and foremost, almost everyone at some point or another explained that urban design is all about context and understanding a project’s surroundings. With that in mind, this section profiles four developments in Houston and Dallas that are setting the bar for the future in urban design.

HOK has designed the Houston Pavillions project to transform four downtown Houston city blocks into a hub for entertainment, retail and office space.

In downtown Houston, there has been much discussion about filling in holes where the city has sprawled to a great degree. Bounded by Dallas Street to the north, Polk Street to the south, Main Street to the west and Caroline Street to the east, HOK has designed the Houston Pavilions project, which is transforming those four city blocks into a hub for entertainment, retail and office space.

Overall, the project will encompass 700,000 square feet, with 360,000 square feet of retail tenants occupying the first two floors, a 44,000-square-foot House of Blues and other entertainment venues situated on the third floor, and 200,000 square feet of loft office space rising above. Houston Pavilions is set to be complete in October.

“We tried to make this project more of a contextual development, aiming not to have it stand out, but to tie the city together,” says Roger Soto, senior vice president and design director with HOK. “Houston Pavilions is an example of trying to bring back street life to the center of Houston, and to bring retail from below the tunnel to up above; in general, people want to be outside and active as authentically part of the city.”

The biggest challenge, Soto explained, was to adapt the retail to a constantly changing market, and to fill in a voided space that formerly contained three parking lots. By creating arcades, covered spaces and landscaping, the project has turned out to be a cohesive marketplace and will represent a new, vibrant and pedestrian-friendly zone to aid in transforming Houston proper.

Sonoma, which was designed by Ziegler Cooper Architects, closes several city streets in Houston’s Rice University village to create a European-style plaza with outdoor cafes, fountains and landscaping.

In a similar fashion, though both projects are singularly unique, Ziegler Cooper Architects has designed Sonoma, a mixed-use project located in the 20-block Rice University village area of the city. Situated immediately west of the university, Sonoma features just more than 200 residential units, 150,000 square feet of retail and a small office component.

In designing the project, there was an opportunity to close several city streets in order to emulate a European-style plaza with outdoor cafés, fountains and landscaping to embrace public space and bring the neighborhood — and ultimately the city — back to the people.

“We’ve chosen during the past 10 years to do urban projects, and I enjoy seeing redevelopment of urban patterns in the city,” says Scott Ziegler, senior principal of Ziegler Cooper.  “In terms of Sonoma, we had to ask ourselves whether we wanted to go vertical or go with the Paris-style garden scale, which has about a seven- to eight-story maximum. In the end, we had the good fortune of a good site, and the opportunity to close the street and embrace European urban influences in order to make this a viable and successful urban design.”

In the planning stages to alter the cityscape, there certainly are challenges. Before Sonoma, someone had tried to create a 30-story development in this area, and it hadn’t worked. While designing the project, Ziegler explains that there was a negative reaction originally toward closing the street, for there was a justifiable concern over traffic impact. However, the developer bought the street, and ironically, if Houston had been planned on a grid system, this project wouldn’t have worked. But as it happened, the development was able to push through entitlements and will end up an excellent example of true urban living.

Good Fulton & Farrell is designing 1407 Main, part of the first new residential project to be developed in Dallas’ central business district in 40 years. Photo credit: John Davis – DVDesign Group.

Moving upstate to Dallas, where urban revitalization is in full swing as well, architectural firm Good Fulton & Farrell is designing 1407 Main, which is part of the Third Rail Lofts complex, the first new residential project to be developed in the central business district in 40 years. Situated between Main and Elm streets at Akard, the 17-story glass and metal structure includes 82 one- and two-bedroom lofts and two penthouse units, which range from 751 square feet to 1,681 square feet.

Fitting in between two 1920s historic structures, the building utilizes materials and alignments that mimic their form, and the biggest challenge was managing to include parking underneath 1407 Main. As a result, even though the condominium is stacked on top of the parking garage, the designers created an aluminum curtain wall that comes all the way down to incorporate the two structures continuously.

“Managing urban designs is vastly different than creating suburban architecture,” says Larry Good, president of Good Fulton & Farrell. “Context is so much more important when you’re abutting other buildings and attempting to structure parking. When you’re going vertical in urban areas, stacking uses and incorporating them into the cityscape is a key component in creating a successful design.”

While on the subject of context, the idea doesn’t always mean fitting in and adapting to the surrounding landscape, as these three previous projects are doing. Each of these provides a unique and importantly progressive element to its city’s urban revitalization, but in the case of Midtown in Dallas, designed by Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, creating a building to stand out of the re-developing Dallas skyline was the chief aim.

Standing 34 stories and encompassing 715,000 square feet, the office tower component of Midtown incorporates a twisting shape that will be uniquely recognizable at one of the busiest intersections in the city, Interstate 635/LBJ Freeway and Dallas North Tollway, with frontage along I-635 and Noel Road. Overall, Midtown will encompass 3.7 million square feet of mixed uses, also including 525,000 square feet of retail and a boutique hotel.

“The overall urban design in Dallas has changed even since we created the initial concepts, and the focus of Midtown was the office tower itself,” says Ross Wimer, design partner with Skidmore, Owings and Merrill. “We chose the twisting shape to contrast with the other buildings and be very different. In order to accommodate this shape, we have a square core, but it was a good challenge to work the design an efficient way to lay out the office spaces in a traditional manner, and I don’t think there is an example of an office building that has this form.”

All of these projects, while completely unique, have in common the attempt to incorporate themselves into an existing landscape, which is the goal and challenge of urban designers. As American cities in general — and particularly Texas cities, which are notorious for suburban sprawl — are moving towards more centralized concepts, the live/work/play, 24-hour environment is taking over cities, and effectively, changing the face of real estate development.

Ahead of the Curve

Interestingly, in discussing current real estate trends, none of the architects interviewed seemed particularly surprised by the movement toward urban design. Sinclair Black, firm principal of Black Vernooy in Austin, unfortunately could not comment on particular projects he has in design currently, but says “Urban design begins with the public space, and it’s not merely planning, but creating parks, plazas and landscapes that determine the quality of the experience. Everything we do has to be integration, attraction and refining space.”

As a result, it’s understandable that each of the interviewees explained that the trend of moving back to major cities is nothing new, but it’s catching on in droves now as the general public is beginning to see its advantages. With rising transportation and energy prices, the common consumer is understanding the value of tighter, more efficient spaces. 

“The recent trends are very simple; people want to live in the central cities, and when they graduate college they don’t want to live out in the suburbs,” says Good. “Basically, the creative class is choosing central areas; that’s why everyone is talking about urban design, and that’s why it’s important.”

As a result, 24-hour communities are becoming more vital places. These types of urban designs already are common in Europe and Asia where there is critical mass of people in the cities. When urban design is well handled, the people are there living and working their lives.

“Almost all the American cities are going through a transformational change in urban development patterns,” says Ziegler. “After World War II there was urban sprawl due to cheap land, and development leapfrogged what was in between, the middlescape. I don’t think history will look kindly on the sprawl of the last 50 years; though it was an opportunistic way to make money on land with cheap construction, now the trends are shifting, and increased infrastructure costs are causing us to come up with high density urban solutions.”

Again, as common discussion throughout the commercial real estate industry has been on LEED development, the architects interviewed universally agree that while this trend is important, it’s hardly new to them. Market demand is creating a desire to live in green buildings with filtered water, cleaner air, UV protected sunlight, and insulated glass, etc., but, but architects have been utilizing “green” models for years. Austin, for example, has imposed sustainable standards, with favorable entitlement treatments if one goes “Austin Green.”

“Sustainability has affected us for a long time, and it’s not new,” says Soto. “We’ve seen that most of our clients are asking for LEED certified designs, and now it’s almost a standard. There is at least a discussion and it’s having a big effect, and it’s making people think about sustainability and welfare of people and developments, and there is at least some expectation that the architect will help build a sustainable building.”

With respect to specific LEED certification, some developers have been opposed to those entitlements because they are a challenging and costly hoop to jump. But, as Wimer explains, even though green design has been in Skidmore, Owings and Merrill’s vocabulary for a long time, now that the trend is emerging across the board it’s opened avenues for them. “What’s interesting about the attention it’s getting, it helps us do things that are more ambitious in terms of building efficiency and seeing value in that,” he says. “It very shortly will become standard practice, and then we’ll be going beyond it as well.”

Just recently, the world’s population shifted to become a majority living in urban areas. With that in mind, Wimer explains that a concentration of people using resources in an efficient way is socially and culturally positive, and architecture is adapting to that. Good says that the DART’s (Dallas Area Rapid Transit) hub-and-spoke system is focused on the center city, which is making downtown much more accessible from other areas of the city. Therefore, the European models, which are centered upon highly functioning transit systems, are becoming more viable as cities move toward improving their transit systems.

What remains to be managed, according to Ziegler, is the middlescape, lying between the revitalizing urban cores and the sprawled suburbia. Yet, as the urban scape fills in, the urban village design models can spread to those areas as well, bringing the sense of atmosphere, community and culture that people want to enjoy across the board.

Finally, Soto sums up well the trends in the urban design to which each of the interviewees spoke, explaining that urban design is not only about a specific project or a personal expression, but also about creating a sense of place and a cohesive community.

“Cities are seeing themselves as places that need to attract people who want active, interesting and meaningful environments in which to live,” he says. “Therefore, everyone is focusing on helping build better places, not just better buildings.”

URBAN BURDEN  Working through the tight space and numerous problems of redeveloping Palomar Hotel and Residences. David Pinson Walton Construction Company served as general contractor for the reconstruction of the Palomer Hotel and Residences in Dallas. When Bill Arnquist was in his early 20s working for the Dallas Water Utilities Department, he did not know that experience would one day help him save a project’s timeline and budget. That day came 36 years later when, as an architect with Three Architecture, he worked on the reconstruction of the Palomar Hotel and Residences in Dallas. This redevelopment project is typical of those in urban areas where tight spaces, numerous infrastructure changes and important information lost to history is the norm. The owner and developer, Behringer Harvard Real Estate Investments from Addison, Texas, and Realty America in Dallas, had a raft of challenges awaiting them in the redevelopment of the 40-year-old Hilton Inn Hotel into the Palomar Hotel and Residences. These centered primarily on a super-tight work site space, incorrect use of city infrastructure documentation and a maddening search for water. Still the location was ideal, next to the Central Expressway, and the scope a winner, calling for a multi-use development including a four-star boutique hotel, restaurants, health spa, retail space, underground parking and luxury condominiums. Let the Problems Begin Once the construction team was selected, general contractor Walton Construction Company LLC started the pre-construction immediately to get this hotel and residences on the fast track to completion. The first challenge was the tight space. Access to the site was extremely restricted with only one entrance off Mockingbird Lane, which is only 400 feet from Central Expressway — one of the busiest intersections in Dallas. For the duration, until a few weeks before the hotel opened, there was only one entry and exit for workers and material deliveries, requiring enormous patience and planning by all parties. Typical of urban locations, several problems arose with the relocating or locating of cables, sewers, and fire alarm systems over the course of the project. What was atypical was the spectacularly bad weather. A major thunderstorm hit in March 2006, dumping 10 inches of rain with high winds. The winds blew out large sections of the new roofing material, flooding the roof deck insulation and portions of the upper-floor finishes in the hotel. Also, the permanent storm drain system was not fully designed and the existing system was completely overwhelmed — resulting in extensive flooding in the south tower garage where the existing sump pumps were swamped. While the entire construction team had to dedicate time and resources to figure out each of these problems quickly in order to keep the project on schedule, they paled in comparison to what was to come. Where’s the Water? With the addition of a new condominium tower and modernization of the hotel tower came the need to redesign the existing water service. The City of Dallas allowed the original 8-inch fire sprinkler service to remain, but it was only large enough for the renovated hotel. Also, the City allowed another existing 6-inch main in the Central Expressway service road to remain for irrigation use only. More capacity was needed for the domestic water, the new residence tower fire sprinkler, a fire hydrant and future development on the south end of the site. A new 12-inch private water main was proposed and approved by the city to be installed in the parking garage and connected to the city main in Mockingbird Lane. The sought after water main was thought to be near the north side of the busy Mockingbird Lane, but when the utility contractor went to tap this line, the crew came up dry. They tried again in another spot, and again there was nothing. On the third try, the crew did hit a pipe, but it was not the long-lost water main for which they had been searching. Surveyors’ reports on the property and street lines varied and the search for the water line in question dragged on. This is where Arnquist’s early career stint with Dallas Water Utilities Department came into play. Not wanting to see more resources poured into this goose chase, he decided to do some research. He figured with the widening of the Central Expressway and Mockingbird Lane, some utilities were relocated during construction in order to make room for the highway and street widening. Also, it did not make sense to him that there were no water valves on the surface near where they were boring. Arnquist went back to the Dallas Water Utilities Department, his old stomping ground, and after a few hours and $2 spent on copies of water utility relocation construction drawings, the answer was obvious. He discovered the water line had been inaccurately recorded on the site survey and the city service maps. The actual water line was 40 feet to the west and 10 feet north of where they had been looking the entire time. Immediately, new excavation began with the accurate location of the city water main. The correct water main location required a new place for recorded easements to contain the private line and a large underground check valve vault. This forced months of redrawing, repricing and resubmitting new plans to the Dallas Water Utilities Department before water flowed from the spigots. Walton Construction pulled together the plumbing contractor, utility contractor, civil engineer, architect, developer and City of Dallas to facilitate the agreement and approval of the new plans. The permanent water service was not fully completed until 1 month prior to the opening of the hotel. When all was Said and Done The Palomar Hotel opened on schedule and under budget owing to the proactive teamwork of the development team, the special knowledge and resourcefulness of Arnquist and the cooperation of city professionals who all worked through obstacles to make the necessary hard decisions without compromising the quality outcome of the project. As seen with the Palomar Hotel and Residences, the utilities and infrastructure in urban areas can be very challenging and blow though the contingency plan quickly. In order to avoid these problems, make sure the information being used is up to date and correct. Do not be afraid to question the information — especially if things on the surface do not appear how they should. This might take more time during the planning phase, but will save time and money during construction. David Pinson is the president of the Dallas division of Walton Construction Company LLC.

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