Incorporate Public Amenities

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Devote an extraordinary amount of resources to public amenities. Investment in public amenities distinguishes a town center or urban district as a unique civic place implementing new urbanist principles rather than a more basic mixed-use project. All of the case study projects have major civic spaces, such as plazas or a town commons, within or adjacent to the project.

Belmar features a large public plaza and nine acres of parks, including part of a detention basin that serves as a visual amenity. It also sets aside 30 square feet per unit of open space for private use or landscaped open space in residential sub-districts.

Paseo Colorado has a major public paseo – a space for strolling – and an upper level fountain plaza. Both spaces have become community gathering spots. Winter Park Village offers a small open green. At City Place, the developer is dedicating an amount equal to one percent of the project costs for public art. Downtown Park Forest has a village green with a stage, gazebo, and veterans memorial where most community events and summer concerts are held.

Some of the new mixed-use districts, like Winter Park Village and Paseo Colorado, retain private ownership of the public spaces. The owners of Paseo Colorado conveyed public pedestrian and view easements to the city on the privately held and maintained plazas, with liability insured by a master insurance program with the city and the property owners.

Alternatively, public spaces within some new mixed-use centers are publicly held and operated, such as the streets and important plazas in Belmar, or the publicly owned Park Forest project.

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Last edited by TeganDowling. Based on work by JeffBarke and JamesCarlson.  Page last modified on July 26, 2005