Why SynergiCity?
For the past 15 years, manufacturing cities throughout the United States have experienced a significant decline. Manufacturing’s share of employment in the United States has been falling for at least 50 years (Bernard et al. 2002). According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Establishment Survey, the share of manufacturing employment in 1950 was about 35% and in 2004 was about 13% (Fisher and Rupert 2005). The 2008–2009 recession, which accelerated with the financial collapse on September 15, 2008, has exacerbated this decline, forcing mass closings of manufacturing facilities and layoffs. Leading economists agree that the effects of this recession will be long-lasting and it will challenge the country to restructure the economy. Moreover, the recession emphasized the fact that the majority of the manufacturing base of the American economy is leaving the United States in order to capitalize on cheap labor in developing countries.
FIGURE 2.1. Rendering of proposed redevelopment of existing warehouses and new multiuse buildings along Adams Street in SynergiCity: Warehouse District, Peoria. (Illustration by Ryan Marshall. Courtesy of School of Architecture, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign)
The consequences of globalization are far-reaching and deep. The global economy will now compel all facets of the American economy to focus on what it has in the past done very well — innovation. In order for America to transform from an industry-based to an innovation-based economy, whole-scale changes will need to be made in every aspect of society. Changes will include the design of our cities as well. Larger American cities such as Detroit, New Orleans, St. Louis, Milwaukee, and Pittsburgh have all experienced extreme economic calamities, significant population fluctuations, and drastic reduction in income and corporate tax receipts. As these cities continue to reassess their standing in a postindustrial age, their urban form will need to be assessed as well. Can these cities retain their current geographical size? Is the current urban form of these cities appropriate for the new economy? These are the fundamental questions facing American cities today.
Former American manufacturing cities — particularly those located in the U.S. Rust Belt — are grappling with a large unemployed workforce, declining populations, a large inventory of unoccupied buildings, and a decaying infrastructure. Starting from this crisis, can we transform our industrial cities into centers of creativity and innovation? Finally, can we use the current economic crisis to correct the environmental mistakes of the past in our cities?
Paul Armstrong and Paul Kapp investigated these issues in two graduate architectural design studios at the School of Architecture, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, during the spring of 2009 and 2010. SynergiCity is a proposal addressed to this challenge in the postindustrial city. It promotes density in urban areas that have an established record of being viable both economically and environmentally, and it proposes to restore floodplain areas of cities that have been developed for other functions back into sustainable uses (fig. 2.1).
Peoria, Illinois
These issues are found not only in larger industrial cities; midsize cities such as Peoria, Illinois, have encountered the same challenges. Peoria is the quintessential midwestern postindustrial city. Because of its proximity to river transportation and access to corn for grain alcohol, Peoria was one of the largest manufacturers of distilled spirits and beer in the United States (Couri 1991). Peoria is also the headquarters of Caterpillar Inc., the world’s largest manufacturer of earth-moving machinery (Funding Universe 2004). Caterpillar’s own manufacturing history offers a synopsis of the rise, decline, and redirection of manufacturing in the United States since World War II. In the postwar period, Caterpillar experienced enormous growth until 1983, when it announced its first annual loss in earnings in half a century. Sales slumped to a recent historic low of $5.4 billion, and the company was forced to lay off workers domestically and closed a plant in Newcastle-on-Tyne, England. Caterpillar’s worst year came in 2002, when profits amounted to $798 million, which translated into a profit margin of just 4%. Under new leadership since 2003, the company has been targeting emerging markets, particularly China, India, and Russia, for future growth, with a goal of $30 billion in revenues by 2006. However, with the recession of 2008–2009, Caterpillar has been forced to lay off 20,000 employees and close plants once again.
Peoria, which derives its name from a local Native American tribe, was selected by Armstrong and Kapp for the design studio project because of its central location, its relative size, and its significance as a historic “river town.” It is the largest city on the Illinois River and the county seat of Peoria County. As of the 2000 census, the city’s population was 112,936. The Greater Peoria Metro area, including suburbs and surrounding areas, has a population of 370,000 (NACo 2008).
While Peoria has many strengths, it “has suffered from the absence of a strong common vision, registered in the mixed messages offered by its streets and buildings, and by the evident difficulty in establishing a clear and distinctive character for the new development along the riverfront” (Duany and Plater-Zyberk 2003: I.1). Cities must reinvent themselves periodically if they are to survive. Relying on manufacturing alone to provide employment, foster economic sustainability and growth, and create the essential foundation for living, education, culture, entertainment, and leisure places cities at risk.
Between 1970 and 2000, Peoria has witnessed an 11.3% decline in population. While this figure is certainly not alarming, it is indicative of a downward trend similar to other industrial cities in the Midwest. As of the 2000 census, the racial makeup of the city was 69.29% white and 24.79% African American, with a median income per household of $36,397 (USCB 2008).
Karina Pallagst, program director of the Center for Global Metropolitan Studies, links urban shrinkage with the “complex . . . forces of globalization” (2008: p. 7). She suggests that this phenomenon should be recognized by cities in “downsizing” urban areas and services.
The Heart of Peoria, a study conducted in 2003 by Andres Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk of DPZ Planners and Architects, recognized the economic and social opportunities in redevelopment of the Warehouse District and riverfront by “bringing new life to the downtown and taking advantage of Peoria’s legacy of historic architecture.” They also saw its promise as “a potential model for the future redevelopment — particularly as an example of the possibility for fruitful collaboration between public and private interests” (Duany and Plater-Zyberk 2003: IV.9).
Consolidation and Revitalization
“Shrinking cities” has only recently cropped up in the United States as a new term in urban planning and development (Grossman 2007). A shrinking city is “a densely populated urban area with a minimum population of 10,000 residents that has faced population losses in large parts for more than two years and is undergoing economic transformations with some symptoms of a structural crisis” (Wiechman 2007: n.p.).
Some critics believe that shrinkage of U.S. cities can be part of standard postindustrial transformations, which are due to the decline of manufacturing industries, or it can be triggered by “post-industrial transformations of a second generation,” which are connected to the high-tech industry (Pallagst 2008: 10). While many planners in the United States have been focusing on revitalizing the distressed inner cities, such as St. Louis and Pittsburgh, less attention has been paid to the fact that there are largescale areas that are shrinking, particularly in the Northeast/Midwest “Rust Belt.”
Shrinkage is proportional to a decrease in urban metabolism, that is, the economic and social vitality of a city. Urban metabolism, defined by Abel Wolman (1965), is a model to facilitate the description and analysis of the flows of the materials and energy within cities. It offers benefits to the studies of the sustainability of cities by providing a unified or holistic viewpoint to encompass all of the activities of a city in a single model.
The city of Rockford, Illinois, is an example where a vision of sustained development was not realized. Its postindustrial central business district was decimated when industries closed. Today vacant warehouses along the Rock River remain as ruins — testaments to better days — and await demolition. Critical intervention, which should have happened 20 years ago, is no longer possible. Meanwhile, businesses have relocated to the State Street “strip,” which connects the city to I-39.
While many municipalities in the United States view shrinkage as pejorative, consolidation can actually present the opportunity in postindustrial cities to maximize Urban Metabolism–a phenomenon, according to noted theorist Richard Florida (2002), that occurs in cities when they are able to grow in GDP, innovation, and patent activity. As they do this, their physical growth happens faster. This typically leads to rising congestion, housing, and business costs. As a city sprawls, the urban metabolism it generates can actually become a negative force that eventually strangles its own vitality. However, Florida argues, “if geographical boundaries are respected, urban metabolism can enhance the vitality of the city both culturally and economically” (2005: 172).
According to the distinguished urban planner Weiming Lu, “It [is] not enough to design good buildings; architects should seek a proper relationship of man to nature and the universe” (Lee 2008: 2). Some urbanists argue that consolidation and targeted development of cities actually can be good environmental stewardship and promote sustainable development (Grossman 2007; Pallagst 2008). However, urban shrinkage can often lead to unplanned landscapes, or terrains vagues, that is, vast zones of conspicuous neglect where residual nature is mixed with industry, waste, and infrastructure (Girot 2005: 19). As industries leave and populations drop, nature begins to reassert itself. Resurgent nature may take the form of urban wilderness, forest, meadow, or succession areas. Green space is usually an amenity in cities, but these ambiguous, unmanaged landscapes contribute to anxiety, reduced property values, and a lack of confidence in a neighborhood’s future. Containing and reconfiguring emergent nature can be a challenge for shrinking cities, which often lack resources to construct, maintain, and plan for new public landscapes.
SynergiCity does not represent merely a “revitalization” or adaptive reuse of Peoria’s existing historic Warehouse District. In the context of this project, SynergiCity is a holistic approach to the sustainable redevelopment of the postindustrial city combining preservation and adaptive reuse of existing buildings with the development of new buildings and services, communications, and transportation infrastructures. While a few of the warehouses in the district could be adaptively reused, many were structurally unsound. Consequently, it was necessary to develop a comprehensive master plan that included sustainable redevelopment of the entire district (plate 2). At the heart of this plan was stewardship of vital natural resources, such as the Illinois River and artesian springs located along the hillsides, as well as promoting sustainable development that balances the social needs of the district with economic growth and ecology.
Vacant land is the most visible byproduct of urban shrinkage. When redevelopment of vacant land is not feasible in the near term or for the foreseeable future, holding strategies and temporary uses can promote stability and uphold adjacent property values. In these cases, landscape beautification offers an established approach. Sustainable development of unused land, some environmentalists argue, may be achieved simply by allowing for natural succession of indigenous plant species to take over. When vacancy is widespread, unused land can improve a city’s environmental functions. Vacant land in strategic locations within a watershed can provide storm-water management, create wildlife habitat, and establish concentrated areas of vegetation to improve air quality and reduce urban heat-island effects. Large-scale depopulation allows for the removal of buildings and pavement from floodplains. Low-lying, open land can retain storm water before it reaches rivers, streams, or sewer systems (Pallagst et al. 2009; Spirn 2005).
As part of their research and analysis, the students turned to the Heart of Peoria study, which was commissioned from DPZ Planners and Architects by the Heart of Peoria Development Corporation and the city of Peoria. This firm uses urban planning, design, and architecture principles and methods that they pioneered during the planning of Seaside, Florida, during the 1980s and that have been applied in many subsequent projects. Furthermore, the Urban and Architectural Codes that DPZ developed have been adopted by the Congress of New Urbanism as guidelines for the revitalization of existing cities and the development of new and existing suburban communities. DPZ's “chief innovation has less to do with [a city’s] buildings and more to do with the space between buildings and the buildings’ response to the space” (Easterling 1991: 48). The Urban Code sets up interdependency between road width, landscaping, lot size, and housing type. Regulation of the spatial modeling of the street is perhaps its most important function. It determines when to use a boulevard as well as setback and height requirements to maintain a proportional streetscape. The Architectural Code determines the aesthetics or “style” for buildings. It addresses front porches, window types and dimensions, roof pitches, cladding, and other design features.
Whereas globalization is part of the cause of shrinking cities, its impact is unclear, since economic change does not affect all cities and countries in the same way. On the contrary, shrinkage can show very different characteristics depending on national, regional, and local contexts (Cunningham-Sabot and Fol 2007; Pallagst 2008). Moreover, there is no clear definition of shrinking cities, but rather a range of various interpretations of the phenomenon. There can be a wide spectrum of possibilities for urban decline, ranging from a natural growth-opposing process to decline with negative implications (Brandstetter et al. 2005). For instance, not all cities may want to grow. The city of Portland, Oregon, has adopted a “no growth” policy to limit urban sprawl. Some postindustrial cities — notably Detroit, Michigan, and East St. Louis, Illinois — seem to be in a state of continual decline, with little real prospect for growth in the foreseeable future. However, for most cities urban shrinkage is a cyclical process, embedded in a broader context of growing and shrinking.
One dilemma of dealing with urban shrinkage from a planning perspective is that urban development is strongly interlinked with growth, leading to the perception of shrinkage as a threat or a taboo (Brandstetter et al. 2005). Maintaining a strategy of economic growth with the aim of regaining population growth used to be cities’ most common reaction to urban shrinkage, not very often leading to success. In challenging the predominance of growth as the normative doctrine in planning, some researchers wonder whether shrinkage is a problem to be solved or an opportunity not to be missed. Others advocate a new sensitivity in planning that relies on honesty when it comes to coping with future challenges of shrinking cities (Fuhrich and Kaltenbrunner 2005; Martinez-Fernandez and Wu 2007).
Pallagst (2008) presents three challenges that planners and designers must address regarding the problem of urban consolidation. The foremost challenge is to acknowledge that some cities should become smaller geographically, not larger. In the United States, where economic and population growth is assumed, shrinkage is anathema to many planners and municipalities. While consolidation initially will result in loss of revenue due to a smaller tax base, many urban theorists believe that in the long term it will produce a net income gain by creating greater efficiencies of resources and people concentrated within a smaller, more compact geographic area. Many U.S. cities, especially those in the “Rust Belt,” are faced with the problem of revitalizing their urban infrastructures, including aging transportation networks, waste and water treatment systems, and energy delivery systems. A more compact city would allow for strategic investment directed to a more concentric, densely populated city center, as opposed to less efficient distribution over a vast, decentralized, underserved area.
The second challenge is that municipal governments must develop a realistic inventory of their physical, economic, intellectual, and cultural resources at both the urban and regional scales. They must critically evaluate what they have and what they are lacking in each area and develop a strategic plan to address shortfalls. Revitalization of the urban core may be a part of the plan, but it alone cannot be the solution. A balanced, multifocused approach will yield greater dividends in the future than a haphazard or one-dimensional approach.
Finally, a comprehensive, strategic plan must address economic, social, and environmental sustainability. This may mean promoting new forms of manufacturing, “green” technologies, and economic initiatives. Enterprise zones and tax increment financing (TIF) districts are just two traditional methods of promoting economic growth in decaying inner cities. Public-private partnerships among cities, businesses, and academic institutions also should be created to identify and develop new areas of economic growth and to educate and retrain skilled workers for new enterprise markets, especially in areas of green and biomedical technology. In addition, any strategic plan must also include a marketing effort to promote the vision of the district and provisions for a development bank for leveraging financing (Lee 2008).
Creative Capital
The students recognized early in the planning process that they would be designing for a unique demographic group. Richard Florida’s definition of “class” emphasizes the way people organize themselves into social groupings and common identities based principally on their economic function (Florida 2002: 67). The “Creative Class include people in science and engineering, architecture and design, education, arts, music, and entertainment, whose economic function is to create new ideas, new technology, and/or new creative content” (2002: 8). Around this creative core, he adds creative professionals in business and finance, law, health care, and related fields who engage in complex problem solving. Generally, they are knowledge intensive, interdisciplinary, technologically savvy, and unhampered by conventions that tend to compartmentalize knowledge and resources.
Florida observes that the Creative Class has already transformed many cities by creating new businesses and enterprises that revitalize cities from within. He describes the “Creative Class” as 40 million workers — 30% of the U.S. workforce — and breaks the class into two broad occupational sections, derived from Standard Occupational Classification codes data sets (BLS 2010): (1) the Super-Creative Core, and (2) Creative Professionals (Florida 2002).
The Super-Creative Core are employed in about 12% of all U.S. jobs. This group is deemed to contain a wide range of occupations (e.g., science, engineering, education, computer programming, research), with arts, design, and media workers making a small subset. Those belonging to this group are considered to “fully engage in the creative process.” The Super-Creative Core are considered to be innovative, creating commercial products and consumer goods. Their primary job function is to be creative and innovative. “Along with problem solving, their work may entail problem finding.” Creative Professionals are the classic “knowledgebased workers” and include those working in health care, business and finance, the legal sector, and education. They “draw on complex bodies of knowledge to solve specific problems” using higher degrees of education to do so (Florida 2002: 69-70). The Creative Class, therefore, includes educated people who are also broadly classified as middle and upper middle class, but also, according to Florida, would be regarded socially as bohemians because of their unconventional lifestyles.
Instead of “Creative Class,” we prefer to use the term “Creative Capital,” which is more inclusive and encompasses a broad spectrum of people, enterprises, institutions, innovative technologies, and the arts that will drive economic development and urban sustainability in the future. While Florida’s arguments are not universally accepted, we believe that they provide a basis for developing a demographic profile of the type of educated individuals most likely to bring a unique vision and set of skills to bear on the problems postindustrial cities face today. Furthermore, we see no reason that high-tech companies that employ educated and skilled people cannot flourish in the Midwest as they have elsewhere. Midwestern cities generally have enjoyed fewer radical fluctuations in the costs of housing, education, and job creation than cities on the West and East coasts. They have a skilled workforce that can be retrained and a substantial infrastructure of buildings, services, and cultural amenities. While there has been a trend for industries to relocate outside the Midwest in recent decades, we believe that this trend can be reversed with the development of new technologies fostered by public-private partnerships combined with economic incentives. John Norquist (2010), CEO of the Congress of New Urbanism and the former mayor of Milwaukee, agrees. He points out that manufacturing is still strong in the Midwest but has changed with the market and economy.
Creating a City-within-a-City
The students identified five major concepts to guide the design process:
Amble: Creative cities promote pedestrian walking, which contributes to a healthy lifestyle and to the social interaction that is necessary for innovation.
Density: Creative cities need the critical mass for not only work but play.
Sustainability: The people who live in creative cities demand that their cities be sensitive to the environment and use resources wisely.
Epicenters: Major areas or urban nodes are needed in which human activity occurs routinely. These may occur at transportation, commercial, or cultural centers where people congregate.
Synergy: Creative cities thrive on the cooperative action of creative enterprise.
“Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (WCED 1987). Its “three pillars” are the reconciliation of environmental, social, and economic demands. A socially sustainable community is one that provides equal access to resources for present and future generations. These include the economic resources necessary for education, health and well-being, and prosperity as well as maintaining the quality of the natural environment and the wise use and conservation of its resources. The goal of synergy, beyond its purely economic aspects, is also to develop a more socially diverse and environmentally sustainable community by promoting new technology and innovative problem-solving strategies.
Creating pedestrian-friendly cities in which goods and services are located in proximity to mixed-use residential neighborhoods is a fundamental goal of New Urbanism. This requires walkable, pedestrianfriendly communities that are compact. The street, the square, and the quarter are its major urban components and are serviced by strategically placed public transit nodes located within five- and ten-minute walking radii of major services. New Urbanist planners and architects, such as DPZ, favor a dense, more compact city with contiguous neighborhoods that contain a diverse mix of residential, retail, commercial, and civic functions. Public squares and green spaces are vital for recreation and social interaction, as well as for maintaining sustainable ecological biomes. In Peoria, DPZ took a comprehensive approach to master planning districts within the entire city. These included the Downtown, the Riverfront, the Sears Block Redevelopment, the Warehouse District, and several neighborhoods. The students realized that the Warehouse District was by far the most challenging and compelling area for development, especially with the planned redevelopment of the former Sears Block for the proposed Lakeview Art Museum (Duany and Plater-Zyberk 2003).
TRANSECT PLANNING
In order to address urban design in a sustainable manner, the students applied DPZ's concept of transect planning: sites are considered as an ecological biome in section, each containing a mix of functions, populations, and services, from urban to suburban in character, which are planned in such a way as to promote ecological diversity (plate 3). Accordingly, the Warehouse District was divided into four multiblock transects running downhill from northwest to southeast toward the Illinois River. Each transect was given a unique character that blended functions into livable neighborhoods based on SmartCode planning principles (see below). Students collaborated to develop an overall master plan and then formed smaller teams to develop architectural strategies for each transect. Their decisions were predicated on three major goals: (1) to develop a sustainable community (i.e., a community that strives to balance social equity with economic development and ecology); (2) to promote economic and social diversity by fostering new technology, in manufacturing, media, the arts, energy and ecology, and biomedicine, among others, developed by an emerging creative class; and (3) to create a balanced mix of residential, commercial, civic, and cultural activities at appropriate scales. The result was a plan for a “city-within-acity” that they named SynergiCity.
SMARTCODE PLANNING
The students also applied concepts related to SmartCode planning, a unified land development ordinance template for planning and urban design. It folds zoning, subdivision regulations, urban design, and basic architectural standards into one compact document. Because the SmartCode enables an urban municipality to develop a shared vision of how it can plan physically for its future social and economic growth by coding specific outcomes that are desired in particular places, it is meant to be locally calibrated by professional planners, architects, and attorneys.
One of the basic principles in the SmartCode is that towns and cities should be structured as a series of walkable neighborhoods. Pedestrian-friendly design requires a mix of land uses (residential, office, and retail), public spaces with a sense of enclosure to create “outdoor rooms,” and pedestrian-oriented transportation design. The SmartCode meshes with the diverse and individualistic lifestyles that the Creative Class enjoys, which involve collaboration, participation, and experiential activities that engage complex problem-solving techniques and strategies. This “Street Level Culture,” according to Florida, comprises a “teeming blend of cafes, sidewalk musicians, and small galleries and bistros, where it is hard to draw the line between participant and observer, or between creativity and its creators” (2002: 184; plate 1).
The zones within the SmartCode are designed to create complete human habitats (i.e., transects) ranging from the very rural to the very urban. Whereas conventional zoning categories are based on different land uses, SmartCode zoning categories are based on their rural-urban character. All categories within the SmartCode allow some mix of uses. SmartCode zoning categories ensure that a community offers a full diversity of building types, thoroughfare types, and civic space types and that each has appropriate characteristics for its location.
WAREHOUSE DISTRICT
The Warehouse District extends about 1.5 miles from Liberty Street and the Central Business District (CBD) at the north end to Persimmon Street and the Archer Daniels Midland plant at its south end (plate 2). In April 2009, the Peoria City Council voted on a resolution to continue planning for the proposed Lakeview Art Museum, which will be located in the CBD adjacent to the Warehouse District. This dynamic complex will further enhance the cultural and economic bond between the CBD and the Warehouse District. It also promises to become a major attraction not only for the citizens of Peoria but for the region and the entire state of Illinois.
The students proposed four new transects: (1) Arts and Culture Infill, (2) Civic Center, (3) Commercial/Retail, and (4) Mixed Office-Residential (MOR). The Civic Center will contain mixed-use buildings, a public plaza, and retail and commercial spaces (plate 6). At its head will be SynergiCenter, a high-tech glass pavilion, which will provide exhibition space and act as a circulation hub, and a high-rise tower. SynergiCenter will be linked to a lower-level retail mall that is tucked beneath the plaza (fig. 2.2).
FIGURE 2.2. Rendering of proposed development along Adams Street in the Civic Center transect of SynergiCity: Warehouse District, Peoria. The glass and steel SynergiCenter is a focal point for the community as an “ideas incubator” for aspiring entrepreneurs. (Illustration by Cody Bornsheuer and Michael Logunetz. Courtesy of School of Architecture, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign)
TWO MASTER PLANS
During each semester, a different master plan was developed that shared common major planning strategies and themes. While each master plan bears some affinity to the DZB proposal, it also deviates from it in several significant ways. In the spring 2009 master plan, for example, the most critical (and prescient) decision was to reroute and concentrate all modes of transportation, including the railroad, autos, bicycles, and pedestrians, along the Illinois River. Periodic flooding requires the maintenance of a large tract of undeveloped land between the river and the Warehouse District. The study Heart of Peoria proposed locating buildings within this floodplain in “a second phase of development extending down to the riverfront,” which “includes an extension of the central square down to an open riverfront green, maintained as public realm.” New loft buildings would be added on the east side of the street running along this green, and “would have the benefit of both proximity to the amenities of the district and a spectacular view of the river” (Duany and Plater-Zyberk 2003: IV.3).
However, the students discovered during their analysis of the Warehouse District that a 100-year flood of the Illinois River could cause it to rise and inundate large portions of the district, which can be devastating to businesses and cause physical damage to property. They also studied the district in section and found that the river is located in a valley between two bluffs, with East Peoria on one side of the river and Peoria Heights on the other. The Warehouse District actually slopes from west to east toward the river, which creates a difference in elevation of about 40 feet from Adams Street at the highest contour level in the district to Water Street at the lowest.
Early in the planning process, the students decided to redevelop Washington Street as a landscaped east-west boulevard through the entire district. They also proposed a trolley system to link key nodes in the district to a central transportation hub located in the CBD. Visitors to the district arriving by car will park in strategically located parking structures and be able to go anywhere in the district by trolley. Safe “ambling” and bicycling will also be encouraged throughout the district by providing pedestrian-friendly streets, well-defined crosswalks, and bicycle paths.
Throughout each semester there was much discussion of a proposed business-research collaborative, an effort that has engaged the interest of Bradley University, the medical school and hospitals, the nearby agricultural research center, and local industry. The proposed collaborative has also been recognized as potentially an important component of Peoria’s economic development in the twenty-first century. In St. Paul, Minnesota, for example, the Lowertown Development Corporation was formed to develop a similar partnership in order “to transform [the Lowertown district] so that people would come back into the city” (Lee 2008). The corporation focused on three types of activities: first, as a design center to create a new vision for the area; second, as a marketing office to make people believe in its vision and the market potential for the area and be willing to invest; and third, as a development bank to fill the gap in financing.
In Heart of Peoria, DPZ proposed a biomedical research campus located along West Main Street. They concluded that the West Main Street corridor offered “both a central location and ample opportunities for the nearby development of services and amenities that would be necessary to support this kind of campus” (Duany and Plater-Zyberk 2003: V.10) During the spring 2010 term, the students recommended that a business incubator/research campus be located in the district between Adams and Jefferson streets. The Oak and State Street corridors could be developed as mixed-use retail and civic centers for the district, using the existing warehouses for business incubator facilities combined with housing and retail functions.
DPZ cautioned that “the most common approach to developing a research campus is the suburban model: a relatively isolated cluster of buildings located on some wide-open stretch of university campus or on a greenfield site in the suburban fringe,” which “would neither offer the attractions of an urban setting to the researchers and staff, nor would the resulting development bring the same benefits to the community and the immediately surrounding neighborhoods” (Duany and Plater-Zyberk 2003: V.10). The students reasoned that a research-business incubator “urban campus” could be a model for redevelopment that would bring both activity and investment interest to the area. The campus would provide facilities for retraining workers in emerging fields such as green technologies and biomedicine as well as incubator buildings for startup enterprises. As companies become successful, a portion of the profits would be used to maintain and support new initiatives in the district.
The essential concept of synergy is to create “town-and-gown” superregional partnerships with Bradley University, the University of Illinois, Illinois Central Community College, and local and regional businesses and medical centers. The campus portion of the scheme is organized around a pedestrian quad. The main entrances to key buildings face the quad, with secondary courts that serve as public space within each block, offering a place for researchers and visitors to meet that is relatively insulated from the noise and activity of the busy streets.
New mixed-use buildings in the district generally will be three to five stories high, with pedestrianoriented retail stores at street level. Oak Street is designated a commercial-retail corridor featuring adaptive reuse of existing warehouses. The blocks bounded by Persimmon, Maple, and Harrison Streets are designated a Mixed Office Retail (MOR) district. This area will define the southern boundary of the district and create a transition for development beyond it. The redevelopment of Oak Street and the research campus itself will remove conditions and uses that have created concern in the past. In addition, the presence of people and businesses on the street will increase safety and reduce crime in the area. The street enclosure created by the civic center buildings, along with the midblock dropoff points, will provide traffic calming that will also help insulate the neighborhood from the activity and traffic of Adams Street to the north.
Two key buildings were proposed in the spring 2009 master plan: (1) SynergiCenter, an all-glass pavilion located on Adams, will be a node for SynergiCity and the iconic gateway to the public plaza. It will be used for exhibitions and events in the district and will provide access to development below the plaza. (2) SynergiTower, a high-rise building, will create a vertical landmark for the district and develop continuity on the skyline with the existing high-rise towers in the CBD to the north.
The study Heart of Peoria discouraged adding high-rise buildings and instead recommended building horizontally. Even within the studio, there was disagreement about the role of high-rises. In their final 2009 master plan, the students decided that high-rise buildings could be used as landmarks and to consolidate multiple functions in a smaller footprint, but they should be restricted to the civic center. In the 2010 master plan, a high-rise hotel was proposed that bordered the outfield of the minor league baseball stadium and complemented the transportation node at the convention center.
Parking is contained in courtyards and beneath buildings, where grade changes permit access. This strategy maintains the continuity of the street edge lined with businesses, as well as providing additional opportunities for retail activity in alleyways that also function as service streets. In-fill projects in the Arts and Culture Transect will be crucial to the completion of the historic urban fabric and provide an appropriate connection between the CBD and the proposed arts center to the north and the City Center Transect to the south.
SUSTAINABLE PLANNING
To mitigate flooding problems, the students proposed two possible solutions. In the spring 2009 master plan, they developed a landscaped levee along the river and routed a transportation corridor there as well. This solution diverts automobiles, trucks, and trains away from the district along the river. An earthen landscaped “berm” shields the traffic — both visually and audibly — from residents of the district. The majority of the riverfront would then be developed as a sustainable ecological public park and wetland biome (plate 5).
Sustainability and water treatment was of even greater concern with the development of the spring 2010 master plan, which conceived the entire district as an eco-friendly “living machine,” using a variety of aquatic plants and microorganisms to filter and treat gray water and rainwater from the Warehouse District before recycling or discharging it into the river. The students used a combination of filter strips located along streets and alleyways, as well as bioswales — landscape elements designed to remove silt and pollution from surface and runoff water — located along the river. A retention basin located in the “front yard” along the river would temporarily capture runoff water and help to abate flooding. In both master plans, native plants, grasses, and rain gardens located throughout the district were proposed to filter pollutants and transform a significant portion of the park into an ecologically diverse prairie/wetland.
CIVIC CENTER
The spring 2009 master plan called for redeveloping State Street into a pedestrian-only civic center corridor extending from Adams Street to the park. In this scheme, the proposed civic center featured urban public space defined by an infrastructure of new, mixed-use buildings that provided retail space at the ground level with commercial space at the upper levels (plate 6).
The spring 2010 master plan rejected closing any major streets. Instead, students proposed developing alleyways as interior pedestrian and service streets lined with mixed-use business-residential buildings. The civic center was redefined by expanding the existing police station and adding a fire substation. The students also proposed developing a new transportation center adjacent to the convention center, close to the downtown business district, and accessible to the Warehouse District.
The intersection of Kumpf Boulevard and Adams Street, which had been unresolved in the spring 2009 master plan, now became a large roundabout lined with business incubator buildings. The roundabout, with its large conical skylight and crescentshaped incubator buildings, provided a formal gateway to the city and defined a sense of arrival at the end of the Bob Michel Bridge, which links East Peoria with the city of Peoria (plate 7). A pedestrian plaza was also introduced beneath the roundabout with shops and restaurants. This allowed a safe way to walk from east to west without encountering traffic or weather-related hazards.
In each scheme, the most interesting economic concept will be development of a public-private partnership among the city of Peoria, industry, and higher education to promote retraining of workers and foster the development of new, emergent technologies. This concept of “synergy” will synthesize diverse interdisciplinary groups (i.e., the Creative Class), which will collaborate to develop new paradigms for sustainable technologies and enterprises. Initially, startup funding could come from a combination of public and private sources. As businesses become established, a portion of their profits will be reinvested back into SynergiCity to provide seed money for the development of new enterprises. This money could be used, for instance, to provide low-interest loans, to promote research, and to provide incentives to develop new sustainable technologies, among other things.
The students concurred with three recommendations for the district included in the Heart of Peoria (Duany and Plater-Zyberk 2003): (1) officially establish this area as a TIF district and use these resources to encourage renovation and reuse of existing buildings as well as compatible in-fill projects; (2) designate this sector a “district” in the zoning code, enabling it to be redeveloped according to a specific plan; and (3) use the incentives of a streamlined permitting process to attract investment in the plan.
Conclusion
While SynergiCity is a concept that initially was applied specifically to Peoria, it has broader implications that can be translated to other midsized postindustrial cities in the United States. It is our contention that cities must continually redefine themselves if they expect to attract and sustain new “creative capital” consisting of people, enterprises, technology, and the arts, as they must do if they are to compete at a global scale. We also believe that in order for some cities to survive, they will have to critically evaluate their resources and possibly physically contract or consolidate development into sustainable “economic incentive zones” financed through a development investment bank. SynergiCity can address urban sprawl and sustainable development of the urban core by concentrating people, goods, and services into a more compact geographic area. If it is successful, it will attract people from outlying towns and suburban communities who are seeking the amenities that a midsize to large city provides. As their circumstances change, retirees and empty-nesters may wish to live in urban communities in proximity to people of all ages, races, and incomes. They will bring experiences, skills, and expertise that will be vital to the economic and social development of SynergiCity. Young professionals and creative people will also be attracted to a redeveloped urban center. They already seek the opportunities and vitality afforded by urban environments. They are also the most likely group to be willing and able to take greater financial and personal risks where the potential for long-term rewards is greatest.
Finally, and most important, SynergiCity is sustainable in its most holistic sense. If we define sustainability as a balance of social, economic, and environmental factors, then, as we have seen, SynergiCity addresses each area. Economic development is paramount to providing a successful and sustainable infrastructure. Balancing the humanmade world with the natural environment is both a requirement and desirable for livability. Social sustainability, access to resources for future generations, we believe, will be achieved as architects, planners, politicians, and others address in a comprehensive manner the issues of how to provide all residents with employment, education, affordable housing, and community services. In the final analysis, SynergiCity constitutes a model for the reinvention of a sustainable, interdependent postindustrial city as a vibrant epicenter of creativity, technical innovation, and entrepreneurship that will lead postindustrial cities into the twenty-first century.
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