School urban planning project

[kalilza]

hi everyone,
I am currently participating in a project called Urbanplan for my high school economics class, and I was wondering if any of you could give me a little help. We have a number of issues(a.k.a. problems) with our city plan, but one of them is that we turned an historic building into a police station/retail. We think that doing this is a little out of the ordinary, and will probably cause us problems when we present our plan. So, I was hoping that someone knew of a real life situation wherein either A)an historic building was turned into a police station and retail, or B) a police station shares building with retail.
Also, if there are any examples of Luxury Condos next to mid-rise office buildings, that would be really great.
I appreciate any and all help anyone can give.
thanks,
kalilza

[DetroitPlanner]

What you are proposing has numerous applications. I'm surprised you were able to find this site, but not examples of what you were looking for. It is not unusual for government to lease space in developments; and for places with retail police is a win win situation, where I'm sure the City can negotiate a very good rate.

[Cardinal]

The real issue with a police station in an historic building comes in when there is a need for garage space, holding areas, etc. If it is a branch station, then what you have proposed is pretty common. You will often find small substations located in commercial areas (especially near colleges!).

I have worked on dozens of projects mixing residential and office, residential and retail, and even residential and industrial uses. The ideal use for a given site may change along a stretch of frontage, with depth from the main street, or vertically. I see no problem with putting these uses together.

[skyfire]

Check out this link.

http://www.glendaleohio.org/p01.html

I don't know if this is a conversion of an historic building into a police station, or if it is a historic police station. But it is pretty cool. If you go three or four pics into the slideshow, there is a garage that may be part of the police complex.

[kalilza]

wow! thank you everyone, the information you gave me is exactly what I was looking for. Now all that is left is finding examples of the lxury condos, so I will keep looking.

[DPP]

This should be fairly easy to find -- I'd think Vancouver would have a number of good examples. If you can locate copies of ULI's Urban Spaces series books at a local college or university library, you'd probably find many examples of this kind of mixed use that you could use in your documentation.

[michaelskis]

Grand Rapids Michigan is doing a lot of what you suggested. The Police Department is part of a Parking Garage, an old YMCA and an old High School are both being converted into luxury condos. Additionally, several historic furniture manufacturing buildings have been converted into mixed use developments with offices, condos, restaurants, and retail.

Here are some links that might help
http://www.unionsquaregr.com/
http://www.boardwalkgr.com/
http://www.hillmountgr.com/home.html
http://www.thefitzgeraldresidences.com/home.html

[Tranplanner]

Toronto's 51 Division reused an historic warehouse.