ULI Building Healthy Places Toolkit

Prospect Plaza is a mixed-use affordable housing redevelopment project spread over five buildings and three blocks in Brooklyn’s Ocean Hill–Brownsville neighborhood. The $200 million project is replacing a former New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) complex with a mix of nearly 400 public housing and affordable rental apartments, retail space, and community and recreational facilities designed to support resident health in a rapidly developing area with significant public health challenges. Learn more.

New Genesis Apartments is a 106-unit, mixed-income, mixed-use housing redevelopment project that includes local retailers, affordable artists’ lofts, and supportive housing services. The project is located between downtown Los Angeles’s burgeoning historic core and the city’s Skid Row neighborhood, a 50-block area that is home to more than 4,600 people who lack permanent stable housing. Learn more.

High Point is a 129-acre (52 ha) mixed-income redevelopment project in Seattle focused on resident well-being and an enhanced quality of life in the surrounding area. Health-promoting features at High Point include a community clinic, pedestrian-friendly design, and homes designed to reduce the risk and severity of asthma. Learn more.

Mueller is a 700-acre redevelopment of a former airport into a health-focused master-planned community just three miles from downtown Austin, Texas. By 2020, Mueller is projected to have over 5,700 single family and multifamily units, a quarter of which will be affordable for low-income families. The Catellus Development Corporation worked with master planners ROMA Design and McCann Adams Studio to promote community health and wellness, to increase pedestrian activity, to improve air quality, and to utilize low-emission building materials.

Mueller’s various facilities and amenities are designed around the principles of social interaction, open space preservation, and active lifestyles. Tree-lined sidewalks and protected bicycle lanes provide shade and connect to a comprehensive trail system, retail, and recreational parks to encourage walking and bicycling. To promote physical fitness, Mueller provides sports facilities, playgrounds, a stretching area, and outdoor showers. A six-acre orchard and community garden provides residents with a seasonal harvest. Residents have initiated over 40 different clubs and interest groups and over 70,000 people attend large scale community events annually. The developer has facilitated social interaction these interactions through a block party at move-in and through physical design, including front porches, stoops, gardens, and alleyways in residential areas.

Learn more about Mueller in this case study and in ULI’s Building for Wellness: The Business Case report.

At Mariposa, an affordable housing redevelopment project located southwest of downtown Denver and redeveloped by the Denver Housing Authority, physical activity is encouraged through thoughtful design and programming choices. Located adjacent to a new light-rail station, Mariposa encourages the use of active transportation options with a bike-sharing program and supportive classes, and the community center features an attractive, interactive internal staircase and lots of programming to get people moving. Learn more.

The Interlace is a 1,040-unit mixed use development inspired by the old villages of Singapore. Developer CapitaLand Singapore Limited partnered with the Office for Metropolitan Architecture to create eight courtyards, cascading rooftop gardens, and terraces within a “vertical village” to provide views, ventilation, and green spaces for all levels of the 24-story complex. The hexagonal arrangement of the development was designed and tested to provide passive cooling and shade in Singapore’s tropical climate.

Physical activity, social interaction, and aging-in-place is encouraged through a wide range of facilities. There is a series of play pools, an Olympic-sized lap pool, three tennis courts, and a fitness center. Bicycle storage and parking facilities are provided underground and vast green spaces, covering over 112 percent of the original property, are provided at ground level and above. Community gardens, playgrounds, barbeque pits, dog runs, and outdoor exercise equipment promote outdoor physical activity and social gatherings. A running track around the perimeter of the Interlace is so wide it doubles as access for fire and emergency response vehicles. The universal design features of the Interlace, including specialized aging-in-place units and wheelchair-friendly fitness centers, was recognized by Singapore’s Building Construction Authority with the Gold Plus (Design) award.

Learn more about the Interlace in this case study and in ULI’s Building for Wellness: The Business Case report.

Selandra Rise is a 284-acre master-planned community focused on providing diverse and affordable options for housing, employment, health, and well-being. Australia’s largest real estate developer, Stockland, partnered with the Planning Institute of Australia to create a community of 1,300 homes at buildout using sustainable building materials.

The local government, the Victorian Health Promotion Foundation, and the Growth Areas Authority partnered with Stockland to provide services to promote health, wellness, and active lifestyles. All homes are within a quarter-mile walk of parkland, including the Clyde Creek trail, small pocket parks, playgrounds, a community garden, and an outdoor fitness station. Selandra Rise developed a comprehensive network of permeable, walkable, and tree-lined sidewalks and paths. Throughout this community, wayfinding signs indicate the time it would take to walk or bike to various destinations. Bicycle lanes are separated from car traffic and walking paths lead to recreational areas. Selandra Community Place organizes twenty to thirty free programs per month focused on health, wellness and social engagement.

Learn more about Selandra Rise in this case study and in ULI’s Building for Wellness: The Business Case report.

Grow Community, a master-planned development on Bainbridge Island, Washington, has social interaction at the core of its design and programming. Asani Development partnered with Davis Studio Architecture + Design LLC and Cutler Anderson Architects, to develop the project, which will include 132 residences, a community center, an early childhood center, and nearly two acres of community gardens and open space at buildout.

Their One Planet Living framework encourages “active, sociable, meaningful lives to promote good health and well-being” and promotes zero-net-carbon buildings, water use reduction, waste reduction, and the use of sustainable, healthy building materials. This framework guided the development of affordable housing for young families, people on fixed-incomes, and single households. Parking is located on the perimeter and underground to minimize impervious surfaces and to promote spontaneous encounters between residents using the interior footpaths. In place of a playground, natural play elements such as flat granite rocks were incorporated into walking paths. A solar-powered electric charging station is provided for an on-site carsharing program to reduce automobile dependency.

Learn more about Grow Community in ULI’s Building for Wellness: The Business Case report.

Via6 is a 654-unit mixed-use apartment complex spanning an entire city block of downtown Seattle, Washington. Developer Pine Street Group LLC and designers GGLO and Hewitt created this two-tower development as a “vertical neighborhood” of residential, leisure, and commercial spaces in an area formerly devoid of housing and street life.

The central location of Via6 ensures walkable access to a major transit hub, ground-floor retail, and carsharing services. The numerous amenities and facilities of Via6 itself aim to promote social interaction and physical activity. The ViaBike Club and the Velo Bike Shop are located on-site to provide residents and visitors with a bicycle washing station, a storage facility, lockers, showers, mechanic classes, stands, tools, and a bicycle lending service. An eighteen-foot chronograph in the lobby and two in-house event coordinators facilitate social events for residents to meet their neighbors. This LEED Gold certified building also features a green roof pavilion with indoor and outdoor gathering and barbeque spaces, rain water collection and irrigation, motion-detected lighting and climate controls, a ground-floor theater area, and a mezzanine with a fitness center, a game room, and communal lounges. Via6 remains, to date, the largest private development in Seattle’s history and has received commendation as a 2014 Urban Land Institute Global Awards of Excellence finalist, a 2014 high rise project of the year merit award from the Multi-Family Executive, and a 2013 Multi-Family Development of the Year from NAIOP Washington State.

Learn more about Via6 in this case study and in ULI’s Building for Wellness: The Business Case report.

Jackson Walk is the redevelopment of a 17-acre remediated brownfield site into a multiuse neighborhood featuring a wellness center, a medical clinic, 149 market-rate apartments, 32 affordable and market-rate single-family homes, and over 30 new businesses in downtown Jackson, Tennessee. Developer Healthy Community LLC—a partnership between Crocker Construction Company, HCB Development, and Henry Turley Company—along with architecture firm Looney Ricks Kiss, joined the city’s “JumpStart Jackson” coalition to tackle childhood and adult obesity rates, which once ranked as the second-highest in the nation.

The anchor of Jackson Walk is the LIFT (Living in a Fit Tennessee) wellness center, which offers preventative, primary, and rehabilitative care, a sugar-free café, a recreational gym, community outreach events, and educational programs for children and seniors. Activity throughout the day from the LIFT facility benefits the restaurants and retailers in Jackson Walk. Parking was divided into smaller segments and shared by commercial developments to provide a parklike ambience on site, interspersed with walking and bicycling trails with outdoor exercise stations. New trees, landscaping, sidewalks, and streetlights surround Central Creek, a former concrete-lined drainage ditch, throughout the property. Downtown and midtown amenities, including a farmers’ market, a university, a dog park, an outdoor amphitheater, an entertainment district, and the city’s largest employers, are all accessible by foot or by bike.

Jackson Walk was recognized for its commitment to sustainability and health by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)’s National Award for Smart Growth Achievement in 2015.

Learn more about Jackson Walk in this case study and in ULI’s Building for Wellness: The Business Case report.

The Century Building is the first affordable housing development in downtown Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The building contains 28 workforce units, and 32 market-rate units, along with street-level commercial, retail, and amenity spaces. It was the first mixed-use residential development in Pittsburgh to achieve LEED Gold certification for green building practices, with recycling on every floor, Energy Star appliances, efficient light fixtures and windows, low-flow water fixtures, and dual flush toilets. The Century Building is the adaptive reuse of a historic 1907 office complex, developed by the TREK Development Group and designed by Koning Eizenberg Architects with Moshier Studios.

Asthma and allergy rates for residents have reportedly decreased, in part due to the property’s non-smoking policy, nontoxic building materials, open-loop geothermal system for consistent heating and cooling, recovery ventilation system for fresh air, and energy-wheel to manage heating and odors. A bright green bicycle mural on the building’s north wall welcomes city cyclists and calls attention to a collaboratively-financed secure Bicycle Commuter Center on site. The property also includes a fully-equipped fitness facility, a community room, and a green rooftop deck with views of downtown that serves as a gathering space for residents.

Learn more about the Century Building in ULI’s Building for Wellness: The Business Case report.

1221 Broadway, in San Antonio, Texas, is the adaptive reuse of an abandoned concrete superstructure into a mixed-use development featuring 307 rental units and 10,000 square feet of office space. The project was developed by Area Real Estate and designed by Lake/Flato Architects with O’Neill Conrad Oppelt Architects Inc. Downtown restaurants and entertainment and recreational opportunities are within walking distance via the historic Riverwalk trail, adjacent to the property. At a minimal cost, the developer installed a multitool bike repair station, a B-cycle bikeshare station, and 100 outdoor bike racks.

On site, 1221 Broadway encourages exercise and physical fitness. The developer subsidizes yoga and workout classes in a covered, open-air parking structure featuring 360-degree views of the city. Gym equipment and studio flooring are also available in two additional fitness centers on the premises. Residents can swim year-round in a resort-style pool or a heated rooftop pool. Programmed events and informal gatherings are held in central courtyards, which feature communal tables, barbeques, and exterior staircases that create a collegial feeling among neighbors. An abundance of trees and floor-to-ceiling windows bring natural light, fresh air, and shade into the complex. A dog park at the north end of the site provides an additional gathering space for residents and the over one hundreds dogs living in 1221 Broadway. The success of 1221 Broadway has been a catalyst for commercial development in a previously derelict district.

Learn more about 1221 Broadway in this case study and in ULI’s Building for Wellness: The Business Case report.

Innovation Park in Charlotte, North Carolina, is the 200-acre redevelopment of a suburban IBM complex into an office park focused on fitness and health. Developed by BECO South LLC and designed by Redline Design Group, this project features amenities promoting work/life balance and well-being. Outdoor and indoor wifi-enabled brainstorming spaces, charging stations for electric cars, subsidized daycare, a dry cleaner, a farmers’ market, and multiple on-site food options provide tenants with an opportunity to collaborate and unwind.

Indoors is the BECO Fitness Center, which offers YMCA-led classes twice a day, an eight-week wellness program, individual audio-visual stations, and strength building equipment. Annually, over a two-hour lunch session, local chiropractors, life coaches, nutritionists, and other alternative health care professionals meet with employees to encourage active lifestyles. Innovation Park also features a popular bikesharing program with trainings and group rides organized by the YMCA. An indoor track for walking groups and joggers connects the 13 buildings of the complex.

Learn more about Innovation Park in ULI’s Building for Wellness: The Business Case report.

Champion Station is a redeveloped office park that incorporated numerous amenities and features that have set it apart from more traditional suburban office parks. Developed by TMG Partners, Champion Station encompasses connectivity and healthy amenities—both within the complex and nearby. Opportunities for physical activity and collaboration are abundant, including running and biking trails, sports courts, and open meeting spaces.

The development also provides opportunities for healthy food access beyond what office parks more typically provide. Champion Station is located in walking and biking distance of a number of healthy food options that can be accessed by foot or by bike, including farmers markets. The building concierge offers classes on gardening, and common grill areas and kitchens encourage social interaction and healthy food consumption among employees.

The master-planned community Rancho Sahuarita, located near Tucson, Arizona, and developed and owned by Sharpe & Associates, was designed with healthy living at the forefront.

The lake’s clubhouse provides residents with numerous opportunities for physical activity, including a 6,000-square-foot fitness center, dance and aerobic studios, splash park, and lap pool. The clubhouse also features an outdoor “adventure park” with tennis and basketball courts, a mini golf green, and a children’s playground. Homeowners association dues cover more than 50 different fitness classes offered in the clubhouse, including tennis, basketball, ballet, karate, and yoga.

An extensive network of recreational amenities, such as a ten-acre lake with an adjacent park and walkable promenade, encourage physical activity. The development maintains two large parks complete with pools, as well as smaller parks throughout the grounds with volleyball courts and play equipment for children. Forty miles of paved walking paths and bicycle trails, including a kid-friendly safari trail with life-size bronze animals, connect residents throughout the community.

Rancho Sahuarita has partnered with Carondelet Health Network to maintain an on-site primary and urgent care facility, as well as to offer programming that encourages physical activity and a healthy lifestyle, like a children’s summer camp and a health and wellness lecture series.

Learn more about Rancho Sahuarita in this case study and in ULI’s Building for Wellness: The Business Case report.

Ecopark, a master-planned community in Hanoi, Vietnam, developed and designed by Viet Hung Urban Development & Investment J.S.C., is helping address some of the issues of living in Vietnamese cities. Given the quality-of-life challenges that are emerging as the country’s infrastructure development races to keep up with its rapid economic growth, Ecopark’s sustainable planning is providing residents with much-needed access to abundant green open spaces, pedestrian links, and a higher degree of safety and security while adding more than 30,000 jobs to the economy. The project also has a focus on enhancing access to fresh and safe local food, a growing concern of Hanoians.

Ecopark has designed numerous features to connect residents to local food sources. To ensure that residents have consistent access to healthy food, retail space is planned and leased with special promotional conditions for certified tenants offering organic and locally sourced food options that are grown without the use of pesticides. The community holds weekly farmers markets that provide residents with another source of fresh fruits and vegetables, as well as artisanal food products, and help support small local businesses.

Residents and students of the local school system have the opportunity to grow their own herbs and vegetables in open land plots that are provided by the development. Restaurants in the development’s town center are able to take advantage of the availability of safe, locally grown produce.

The university of California at Davis’s West Village neighborhood is the largest planned zero-net-energy community in the United States. The West Village also offers opportunities for physical activity to residents. The project was developed by the West Village Community Partnership LLC and designed by Studio E Architects, MVE Institutional, Lim Chang Rohling & Associates, Moore Rubell Yudell, and SWA Group.

University of California faculty, staff, and students living in the West Village have access to a number of parks, paths, and gardens that are designed to increase walking and other physical exercise, while decreasing residents’ reliance on cars. Parking is consolidated along the eastern edge of the development, thereby allowing the apartments to be accessed by pedestrian and bike paths. A neighborhood bike trail, bike parking, and bike repair facilities on the premises further encourage residents to bike for recreation or transport.

The neighborhood hosts a 24-hour fitness center, sports courts, a yoga studio, and pools that provide residents the opportunity to engage in their preferred type of exercise on a daily basis.

GlaxoSmithKline’s new office headquarters in Philadelphia’s historic Navy Yard is designed to improve the health and productivity of its workforce. The project was developed by Liberty Property Trust and Synterra Partners and designed by Robert A.M. Stern Architects in association with Kendall/Heaton Associates.

In the open-concept workspace, employees are not limited to any one workspace for an extended period of time. Special features such as adjustable desks that move between sitting and standing promote healthy working habits, and workers can even exercise as they work by using one of the walk-station desks attached to a treadmill. Adjustable chairs and monitor arms offer employees a comfortable, ergonomic office environment.

A prominent lobby staircase encourages employees to skip the elevator. Amenities such as an in-office gym, walking trails, and parks with a putting green offer employees a variety of ways to stay active throughout the workday. A bike-sharing program, maintained by local bike shop Keswick Cycle, offers employees a fleet of bikes to borrow for midday exercise or running errands. A health clinic with a nurse further supports the company’s mission to make wellness a priority.

Park 20|20, a 28-acre office park in Haarlemmermeer, Netherlands, is designed with the health of the building occupants in mind. The project, developed by Delta Development Group and designed by William McDonough + Partners, features specially selected plants that are used to filter internal air through green walls that store carbon dioxide and produce fresh oxygen. Dust is minimized through a ductless floor system and through moss that acts as a natural filter.

Natural light is abundant throughout the office space, minimizing the need for much artificial light. LED lighting—the closest lighting to sunlight—was used to the extent possible, and an automated sun-shading system regulates the interior lighting based on sun and cloud cover. Each office space contains a window that can be opened for fresh air, and buildings are horseshoe shaped with large atriums that allow natural light from two sides. Natural views are provided through 22 acres of open space, which includes a central park that is visible from surrounding streets.

Learn more about Park 20|20 in ULI’s Building for Wellness: The Business Case report.

The Hercules Campus in Playa Vista, California, is a 28-acre redevelopment of historic buildings into an innovative office and studio complex. Developed by the Ratkovich Company and designed by Brenda Levin & Associates and EPT Design, the project uses a variety of features to connect employees and visitors to the picturesque surroundings.

Native Californian plants preserve water, limit landscaping needs of the campus and creating a natural outdoor setting. Outdoor spaces complete with picnic tables provide options for social interaction and outdoor meetings throughout the workday. Indoors, bowed truss ceilings, open spaces, and abundant operable windows provide ample access to light and fresh air.

ECO Modern Flats in Fayetteville, Arkansas, is a one of-a-kind rehabilitation of a 1960s apartment building. Developed by Specialized Real Estate Group and designed by Modus Studio, it is the first multifamily building in the state to be certified LEED Platinum.

ECO Modern Flats is not only designed according to sustainable principles, it also promotes a healthy lifestyle for its residents. Bio-based spray foam insulation and non-VOC paints and finishes reduce the amount of chemicals that residents are exposed to. A ductless heating and cooling system reduces mold, mildew, and dust accumulation, as do concrete floors that do not harbor dust or other allergens and are easy to clean. A strictly enforced nonsmoking policy—the first of its kind in the region—protects residents from secondhand smoke.

Learn more about ECO Modern Flats in ULI’s Building for Wellness: The Business Case report.

Arbor House is a low-income multifamily housing development in the South Bronx, New York, that sets the bar high for green and healthy multifamily buildings. The project, developed by Blue Sea Development and the New York City Housing Authority and designed by ABS Architecture, aims to maintain healthy indoor air quality and to reduce the high asthma rates of the residents.

Several features of the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED)-platinum building were designed to achieve these goals. A living green wall in the lobby produces fresh oxygen, an air filtration system helps clean the air, and low and no-VOC materials were used during construction. The development also maintains a 100 percent no-smoking policy, designed to improve the air quality in and around the development, and an integrated pest management program eliminates the need to use chemicals to keep pests away.

At Via Verde, a 222-unit, mixed-income housing project in New York City’s South Bronx neighborhood developed by Jonathan Rose Companies and Phipps House and designed by Dattner Architects, Grimshaw Architects, and Lee Weintraub Landscape Architecture, urban agriculture dominates.

Garden amenities and facilities are located throughout the development, including a ground-level courtyard garden, a fruit tree orchard, a fitness garden, and a community garden on the fifth floor. A local nonprofit organization, GrowNYC, is managing and operating the gardens in the first two years of operation, with hopes that the Via Verde community will eventually entirely manage and maintain the gardens.

An assortment of organic heirloom herbs, vegetables, and edible flowers is grown in the garden and distributed to residents and the surrounding community. Residents also participate in monthly workshops where they prepare food and participate in tasting demonstrations and recipe giveaways.

Learn more about Via Verde in ULI’s Building for Wellness: The Business Case report.