Jackson Walk

Photo by Looney Ricks Kiss

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.