Suburban office centers

[Cismontane]

I'm looking for good (and maybe not so good) examples of suburban high-rise office centers tied to strong mixed-use development and retail propositions, with or without a regional mall. I'm thinking about things like Reston VA - to cite a good example.

[Richmond Jake]

Tysons Corner. But I don't know if it's good or bad.

https://www.google.com/search?num=10....1.Tg9id1wQsKw

[hilldweller]

Stamford, CT?

[DetroitPlanner]

Prudential Town Center (now Southfield Town Center) was developed for Office, retail, hotel, condos, an internal rain forest, and at one time included a movie theatre. The space is huge and the towers are interconnected, which is a big plus on Snowy Michigan days. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southfield_Town_Center

The only thing close to it in Michigan is the RenCen, now home of GM but definitely not suburban. http://gmrencen.com/home.axis

[Brocktoon]

Tempe, AZ has a few. Tyson Corner is a great example but any of the VA cities just outside DC would work.

[Cismontane]

DetroitPlanner,

Thanks. I was wholly unaware of the Detroit Southfield reference.. it's interesting.

I notice from the Wiki link that development was in the 70s and 80s. Has it continued to expand since then? Does leasing continue to be successful? Are there future development prospects?

[DetroitPlanner]

The last building is less than 20 years old. The City of Southfield has plans for the area and wants to create a new downtown around it. The problem is that the area is already home to Northland, one of the earliest shopping centers, and that is not doing very well. It is also home to what was once a dead mall known as Tel-Twelve, and that is now a strip mall. Not much demand for new office in this market. Most office centers here are starting to play cut-throught as there is more supply than demand and downtown seems to be winning. All hotels in the region have been going downtown because that is where the action is (with the casinos, expanding convention center, and cheap office rents)

[Cismontane]

Interesting.. so the civic redo is successful and starting to attract more companies downtown? That's great news. I didn't know that. Is there any new market housing going into downtown yet?

[DetroitPlanner]

Interesting.. so the civic redo is successful and starting to attract more companies downtown? That's great news. I didn't know that. Is there any new market housing going into downtown yet?

Actually its a combination of cheap rents and agglomeration that is attracting businesses downtown. Housing is moving more slowly with most of the activity being located in the area surrounding the University.

Three companies are leading this charge:
1. Blue Cross is moving nearly all of their employees downtown.
3. Quicken is buying up everything that comes on the market and moving in its people and suppliers.
4. General Motors is starting to rebound. Chrysler has run out of space in Auburn Hills and is now putting employees downtown; a first for Chrysler who has never been downtown since the Dodge Brothers opened up their first shop in what is now Greektown.

[GButler]

Houston is full of edge city or edge city like vertical suburban office centers. The Woodlands Town Center is one of the nicer ones featuring a San Antonio Riverwalk style waterfront promenade.

There are a lot of others inside 610 and the SHT, though the city has grown so fast around them that they probably shouldn't be considered "suburban" anymore.

[WSU MUP Student]

Going slightly off-topic...

DetroitPlanner - thanks for posting up the link to the Southfield Town Center on Wikipedia. I drive past it a few times a week and never knew much of the history, just that there are still a lot of office workers in Southfield... even if commercial vacancy there is currently only about 80% (which is actually up significantly over a couple of years ago). And I will echo what you said about companies moving (or initially locating) downtown really hampering the commercial real estate market's recovery in the suburbs. Hopefully all of those companies moving into Downtown and Midtown Detroit will be so successful and need to expand so quickly that they will have no choice but to return to the suburban digs in Southfield, Troy, and Farmington Hills.