Looking for Town Center / TND Developers

[rvgeons]

Greetings:

Does anyone know of any National or East Coast development firms that specialize in "Town Center" / TND developments? (First floor shops with second or third floor residences. Zero or near to zero front setbacks, that type of stuff. Stereotypical "downtown village" style) I have been charged with aggressively marketing a former School Site. This is the direction that the Town would like to go with he property. If there are developers out there that specialize in that kind of stuff, I would like to approach them directly on behalf of the Town. Any assistance or direction would be greatly appreciated.

Robert Van Geons
Town of Ledyard, CT

 

[Murph]

It seems that their are many creative ways to approach the development. It also seems that the town has some preconceoved notion of what the development should look like but does the town have the flexibility built into their development regs for the project developer to rely on or to have a certain comfort level prior to investing the engineering and planning.

Assuming the town owns the former school site, why wouldn't the town put out an RFP type solicitation for the purchase and development of the property. In your area it seems that as long as there is a multi unit residential component to the development that the financial success of the project is very probable. At that point, the town needs to solicit proposals from interested parties and have them submit a conceptual development plan and details. You can then select the best proposal. This process is done all the time and I am sure you can look for many examples in Conn cities and towns.

 

[PlannerGirl]

In NC a guy by the name of Nate Bowman was doing some of those in the Triad and Triangle using the firm of ZPZ *dont ask me to spell their screwy names*

they were a pain to deal with *too idealistic* but did good stuff

Danie

 

[peter lowitt]

I encountered this same issue a few months back while working with our base redevelopment team on a downtown plan. I called Dan Slone from Mcquire Woods in Richmond, VA who is connected to the New Urbanist groups and he gave me information on a web site which notifies New Urbanist types about RFP/RFQs throughout the country. Dan can be reached at 804-775-1041. Don't pester him too much.
Peter

 

[Catrin]

Go to cnu.org try to attend their annual conference, it's in Miami this year and well worth going to if you are truly interested in TND. Last year I met someone there with degrees in law and planning who is helping us write new land use codes for old traditional neighborhoods...it was worth the conference to find a good consultant.