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.
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.
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 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.