The once-trendy New Urbanist concept takes root in the most mainstream of cities.

By Phillip Morris

Photos by: Jonathan Purvis and courtesy of Placemakers, Dover Kohl & Partners, Cuty loft Corp, and DPZ.

Alabama has seen its fair share of new urbanism projects: Mt Laurel south of Birmingham, Providence in Huntsville, and Shelby County’s growth-management plan among them. But Montgomery has jumped into the forefront of the movement to replace suburban sprawl with walkable neighborhoods and towns, and it is also putting the concepts of traditional urbanism to use in the heart of town.

“In a mere two years, the Montgomery area in Alabama has blossomed into one of the South’s most dynamic markets for New Urbanism,” began an article in the October/November 2006 issue of New Urban News. Even with the national slowdown in development, the new direction appears here to stay. The City of Montgomery has adopted an optional Smart Code citywide, to date the largest city in the U.S. to do so, and Hampstead, the first development to be approved under the new standards, is coming out of the ground in East Montgomery.

The Smart Code, developed by Andres Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk (and their firm DPZ) who pioneered new urbanism with the Town of Seaside in the early 1980’s, is a set of standards that replace typical suburban zoning and subdivision layout with six zones ranging from core urban to rural. Instead of separating uses widely and connecting them with ever-wider suburban arterials, the code favors a mix of uses and a pedestrian-friendly grid of local streets punctuated by public open space and buildings.

“If you implemented the Smart Code out of the box you would get a good American town,”says Ken Groves, Jr., director of planning and development for Montgomery. “But we calibrated it to work with local conditions. Quite simply, it just makes good urban places legal again.”
But a good model code doesn’t make it happen. For Montgomery, a special alignment of local political leadership, enlightened planning, and enthusiastic land owners and developers has turned the corner on its urban future. Here are the highlights to date:

THE WATERS

…a 1,250-acre site within the boundaries of the Town of Pike Road, was originally laid out as a conventional subdivision. When PlaceMakers, a new urbanist firm with an office in Huntsville, was asked to provide traditional Southern house plans, they advised developers Ed Welch and Dale Walker to change to a plan with better open space and views, narrower streets, more lots, a wider range of house size and type and locations for civic structures. They did, and The Waters suddenly showed on-the-ground locally what the new thinking could produce. The town also adopted the Smart Code.

HAMPSTEAD

Returning home from Europe in 2004, Anna Lowder and husband Harvi Sahota decided to see if the urban qualities they admired elsewhere had a place in Montgomery. They formed City Loft Corp. to convert a downtown warehouse to lofts and then put together a mixed-used development on a vacant site in close-by Cloverdale. They also persuaded The Colonial Company, headed by Anna’s father Jimmy Lowder, to develop Hampstead laid out by DPZ for a 416-acre greenfield site on Taylor Road. With encouragement from this group, the City of Montgomery adopted the Smart Code in January 2006 and then the preliminary plan for Hampstead that April. The grand opening of the first of three neighborhoods is planned for October.

In the summer of 2006, under the leadership of Mayor Bobby Bright, the City of Montgomery commissioned Dover Kohl & Partners, a leading new urbanist firm from Miami, to develop a Downtown Montgomery Plan. It uses the same principles to repair and reinforce the traditional urban qualities of the urban core. The plan was adopted along with Smart Code standards made mandatory for downtown. Of the plan’s 20 major recommendations, 16 are in progress or completed, including the restoration of the Court Square roundabout and Grocers Alley, a new pedestrian link lined with active uses between the recently completed hotel/convention center and the city’s new downtown ballpark.

HUDSON

The plan for Hudson, Alabama, led by Dover Kohl & Partners for a 2,100-acre tract of pasture and woodlands on Montgomery’s border with the Town of Pike Road, was approved by the City of Montgomery in December 2007. A partnership between the Hudson family, owners of the land, and Denver-based Urban Villages Inc., envisions it to become a model of sustainable development. All six zones of the Smart Code are expected to be included, with 1,300 acres set aside for permanent open space and agricultural uses. Starting with a more rural segment, work is expected to begin in 2009.

Are all these big projects in competition with each other? Chad Adams, director of development for Hudson, sees them as complementary. “I live in The Waters,” he says. “We are excited about all the other traditional neighborhood developments. Each will be different and will likely attract different kinds of people. We are making plans to provide a convenient and energy efficient link between Hudson and a revitalized downtown Montgomery. Over the long haul suburban sprawl is unsustainable. Montgomery now offers one of the best opportunities in the country to do good quality development that offers viable alternatives, from rural to urban.”

THE ATLANTIC & PACIFIC DEVELOPMENT

(named for the A&P grocery once on the site) in Old Cloverdale won a Charter Award from the Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU) this year. “We had been to CNU’s annual meetings before, but this year in Austin we were amazed how many of the exciting projects presented were urban infill,” says Anna Lowder. Their mixed-use project with residential and office above retail plus eight cottages next door, all designed by Montgomery- based McAlpine Tankersley Architecture, has filled a gap and brought new focus to the neighborhood. (Editor’s note: For an interview with McAlpine-Tankersley principal architect Bobby McAlpine, see page 00.)

Downtown has a lot of potential to become a real living district, but Lowder and Sahota also see the untapped potential in Cloverdale. “It already had the right DNA for urbanism with sidewalks and street life,” says Sahota. “Our project just had to be designed right to fit in.” The retail spaces have attracted mostly local businesses, and even the developers were surprised at the reception with occupancy at 93 percent. Response to the residential has been slower, but the flexibility to sell or lease has brought occupancy to 75 percent, so the desired urbanity has come.

Bringing his planner’s perspective forward, Ken Groves says, “When I drive with someone down Cloverdale Rd., I point to the A&P infill and say, ‘Would you guess that’s 14.5 units per acre?’ Those who think density is bad need to understand it helps urban places be truly urban. It can happen at many scales. It’s all about the context and the design.” The Smart Code, also called a form-based code, provides the tools for any city, town or neighborhood to manage the process and get something that fits.

Looking back downtown, Groves can point to the first stages in a revival of traditional urbanism as outlined in the Dover Kohl master plan and mandated under revised city codes. In addition to the restoration of Court Square, the return of Washington and Adams streets from a one-way pair to two way streets is underway. Another public space project, a new streetscape for Dexter Avenue near the Capitol, is under design. The city’s new façade restoration program has three buildings completed and three more under design.

“When we reviewed conventional regulations versus the Smart Code, we determined that there are many more options under the Smart Code,” Groves says. “It’s easier for smaller projects to work and it makes property more valuable. As a result, we have younger developers getting involved. Byron Berry did a renovation on South Court Street, and now he’s doing three buildings on Perry Street. The city is building a new parking deck in the middle of the block and sold him the fronts of the buildings to renovate so we would have good street frontage.”

So, from downtown revival to neighborhood infill to distinctive, pedestrian-friendly neighborhoods on its growth edge, Montgomery and environs have moved from planning backwater to cutting edge. And while new urbanism is a national and international movement, grassroots success has turned into an export item. Architect Steve Mouzon, a Huntsville native who did The Waters master plan and remains its visiting town architect, has a Miami-based practice doing similar work across the U.S. Attorney Nathan Norris, first marketing director and an early advocate for change, conducts PlaceMakers workshops far and wide.

“What we’ve demonstrated in Montgomery is how quickly a place can change its development patterns,” says Norris. “We had a handful of committed folks, and others came to see the value in the new approach. I tell my workshops if Montgomery can do it, anyplace can.”

CAPTIONS
What began as a conventional subdivision was re-designed by PlaceMakers into what will be a series of traditional, walkable neighborhoods fitted within a framework of lakes and open space. This is Lucas Point, named for an historic tavern not far away. The water edges are shared by the whole community. A wedding party parades from the hilltop chapel down The Waters Avenue, a street that becomes a place because of the preserved hedgerow trees and the closely spaced houses with generous porches. Both the plan and the architecture of Hampstead is inspired by the original Hampstead, a late 19th Century suburb of London that the new urbanism movement uses as a model. A number of architects have been commissioned to design houses to be built by the developers. Much existing farmland and woodlands will remain as a permanent part of the development of Hudson, a 2,100-acre site in far southeast Montgomery named for the land’s owners. The plan calls for a full Smart Code range from rural to town center.

Tucked into Old Cloverdale, the mixed-use Atlantic & Pacific Development is named for the A&P grocery that once stood there. Residential and offices are above, retail at ground level. Eight cottages transition to the adjoining residential area. Ken Groves, Jr., director of planning and development for the City of Montgomery, has overseen creation of the Downtown Montgomery Plan by Dover Kohl & Partners and the adoption of the Smart Code to make traditional urbanism legal again. Court Square, reopened to traffic and paved with traffic-calming cobblestones symbolizes the many changes underway.