July 2006

I am often reminded by the young, future architects that I speak with of the focus in architectural schools on city and master planning compared to the limited attention paid to how to build buildings. Too often these recent students have to learn to focus on the project details instead of the grand planning they envisioned in school. Well, it is our role as architects to be involved in both. In my chosen city, Dover, there is an incredible opportunity that the city is pursuing to redevelop a vacant 32 acre city-owned waterfront parcel adjacent to the downtown. The city has had charrettes and has established a loose master plan for creating a mixed-use urban waterfront. It is a good concept that now needs good implementation. In the drive for an easy solution, the city has chosen to solicit requests for proposals from developers to “build” the waterfront. As a result of this process, they are presently negotiating with a single developer to create an expanded downtown. I believe this approach to be a recipe for failure in achieving a diverse, mixed-use environment. To this end, I have written an editorial to the city and Foster’s Daily Democrat expressing these opinions and asking that the city change its approach to include multiple owners and developers. I ask that you read the enclosed article and, if you share similar sentiments, that you write to the City and to Foster’s to express these opinions. We need to speak as architects and planners to those issues that benefit our built environment.

The City of Dover’s Waterfront Committee is in the process of reviewing a developer’s proposal for developing the Cocheco Waterfront. Concerns have been expressed about the mix of uses in the most recent proposal. I would like to express a larger concern as an Architect and Planner, however, that having only one group develop this prime real estate is contrary to achieving the goals that have been established and that would benefit the public.

The studies, charrette and renderings prepared over the years, including the most recent charrette update of 2005, have helped build a consensus for an urban mixed-use waterfront with pedestrian access to the river. The potential benefit to the fabric and character of the City is tremendous. Creating a successful waterfront is achieved by bringing people and numerous diverse activities to the area. Activities such as restaurants, boutiques for shopping, offices for business and housing for residents all contribute to having people in the area at all times of the day and night. The concept of including the riverwalk is intended to make the river accessible to the public, but it is the activities going on throughout the day that creates excitement and draws people to these public spaces. Consider the places that we like to visit and congregate in, such as we find in other successful towns and cities, and you can see the components that breed interest and success. Locally, we could cite Portsmouth or Newburyport or Newbury Street in Boston that combine a dense group of small 3, 4 and 5 story buildings with individual character, streets and spaces that are an appropriate scale and create comfortable pedestrian ways, even when mixed with cars. Or, on a more global perspective, consider Old Town Quebec with its narrow streets and diverse buildings that evokes a time before the automobile. Or San Antonio with its riverwalk tucked between a small river and adjacent downtown buildings, with outdoor seating at restaurants, occasional public plazas, and access to buildings with their main entrances more on the pedestrian riverfront walk than on their street side, but always a connection to both. Or even more internationally, cities such as Madrid with the Plaza Mayor, or Seville with its narrow winding streets and minaret of La Giralda, or the waterfront in Christiansted in St. Croix built in the 1700's, or Venice with its ultimate unique pedestrian ways and canals. Many of the common elements of these fabulous urban spaces often include the following:

• There is a diversity of character in the buildings that generate interest and avoid monotony.
  
• Urban spaces need a comfortable sense of enclosure created by continuously connected buildings.
  
• A diversity of uses is important to draw people for different reasons and at different times of day.
  
• A pedestrian scale helps limit the automobile to a secondary role.
  
• A variety of heights in buildings adds to the diversity in character.
  
• A variety of spaces from narrow streets to large plazas creates interest.
  
• Multiple buildings of different designs help define public vs. private space.
  
  

We agree on the goal for desirable traits for our waterfront, yet it is the process of how it gets built that is of concern. To expect a single developer to achieve these goals fails to recognize the profit nature of development. Asking a single developer to create a project that is diverse in character, that is not driven solely by profits (often driven by maximizing residential units), that achieves creation of a successful urban space, and that accommodates many different users is unrealistic. Consider what the alternative process of having multiple building owners and developers can achieve:

• Multiple owners have different needs and different ideas on how to attract their clientele, which translates into diverse buildings. Expressing all these differences in each building helps create a diverse character that one developer could never achieve.
  
• Allowing multiple owners and developers permits local people to take part in developing the waterfront. This is good politics and good business, and takes advantage of an important local asset.
  
• There is less risk of failure for the entire Waterfront with multiple owners. This is true in terms of both economic risk and design risk. One failed project or bad design does not preclude others from succeeding.
  
• Multiple owners almost guarantees a diversity in character of the buildings in terms of height, scale, style, and users in the buildings.
  
• The tax benefit from having many private buildings is much greater than having one large project.
  
• Allowing multiple owners and developers permits greater flexibility in financing each project separately. This can also benefit our local lending institutions.
  
• Individual business owners will invest more in their own building than a developer would invest. The developer is limited to making a profit on the building cost, while an Owner occupant is able to invest for its future.
  
• “Rome wasn’t built in a day.” Cities develop over time, and it is actually desirable that the waterfront grow over time. Time permits changes to be made in City guidelines or zoning if it benefits the waterfront, and it permits the area to evolve, which further enhances the character.
  
• Multiple projects will provide a better mix of types and sizes of spaces better suited to market needs.
  
• The City could make a greater profit, both initially through land sales and in the long run through increased taxes, by allowing the waterfront to grow with many owners.
  

The benefits of having multiple owners and developers build on the waterfront helps achieve the stated goals for this area in a way that a single developer cannot. The City should abandon its approach of soliciting a single company for development and, instead, should implement the master plan for the waterfront through sales of property to individual owners and/or developers. This will benefit the public economically and, more importantly, will create the successful, diverse, mixed-use, urban waterfront for which we are striving."