For this week’s YEOW, we’d like to share with you a recent post from Greater Greater Washington blog from writer Ryan Arnold about retrofitting suburbia.
Ryan poses an intriguing question: Could rooftop apartments transform suburban
retail?
Implementing the redevelopment model he proposes could
completely transform our traditionally auto-dependent suburban retail strip malls
into mixed use districts, without having to knock them down and rebuild
them from the ground up. Certainly worth mulling over...
Here’s the post:
Suburban retail areas are redeveloping into
mixed use neighborhoods all over the DC region. Usually redevelopment means
mid-rises replace single-story retail, but could another model work? What if
retail strips added rooftop apartments?
Concept rendering. All images by the author. All images from GGW.
From more livable communities to less congested highways,
mixed-use development has many benefits, and is in high demand. In places
where market demand or zoning regulations prohibit larger scale mid-rises,
maybe innovative design can help bring those benefits too.
Imagine
a row of small apartments added to a big box store's roof. Let's explore how
that might work, using the Safeway supermarket in Seven Corners as a test
subject.
The Safeway, as it exists now.
Since
the building is so wide, a narrow second story near the back would be
completely invisible from the front. Thus, the building can accommodate
apartments with minimal to no effect on the store's appearance.
What could fit?
The
rear wall of this Safeway is long enough to fit 10 apartments, each 25 feet
long, with a gap in the middle to provide access to stairs. The paved area
behind the store is wide enough to accommodate stairs and a narrow parking lane
for residents, with enough room left over for two vehicles to pass each other.
All images by the author. All images from GGW.
A
terrace in front of the apartments acts as a walkway, providing access to each
unit. Rows of windows high on the front wall bring sunlight in without
compromising privacy or subjecting residents to views of the store's roof.
All images by the author. All images from GGW.
Inside,
each unit is a 300 square foot efficiency style apartment.
All images by the author. All images from GGW.
These
apartments may not be luxurious, but maybe that's OK. Given rising demand for
mixed-use living, apartments like these could provide scarce affordable housing
to tenants who want to walk to shopping areas. Perhaps retail workers at the
very stores below might be able to live here.
Meanwhile,
nearly invisible apartments atop strip malls might conceivably face less
opposition from surrounding communities than large new buildings. Or maybe not;
that's hard to predict. But new housing has to go somewhere, and it's better if
we can fit more of it in existing communities. Maybe this is a way to do that.
Is this actually realistic?
There
are clearly challenges to making an idea like this work.
First,
the structural challenge. Since the roof wasn't designed to support a second
story, the building would likely need structural reinforcement. That's unlikely
to happen in a functioning supermarket that's open to customers. But it may be
practical during renovations, for adaptive reuse, or in new buildings.
Second,
the regulatory challenge. Many suburban retail strips are retail-only because
that's what the zoning allows. Since it often takes years to go through the
difficult process of getting zoning approval for mixed-use, it's often only
worth developers' trouble for large projects.
Finally,
the developer challenge. Developers often specialize in one type of project. Toll
Brothers builds suburban houses, Abdo builds urban
mixed-use mid-rises, Macerich specializes in shopping malls. It
would likely take a special case for a suburban retail developer to take on
apartments, or an apartment developer to build a big box.
But
people used to cite similar challenges as impediments to New Urbanism, and it's booming. Where there's
a will, there's a way.
And
there could be a will. Demand for convenient mixed-use living keeps growing,
while our cities keep getting more and more expensive. Something is going to
have to give. This idea could provide affordable housing that's walkable to
convenient destinations.
It
just takes a little creativity. And, maybe, a small scale pilot project or two.
Visit the GGW blog for the original post: http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post/23321/could-rooftop-apartments-transform-suburban-retail/
