Why an Urban Center Now?

Real estate investment is now focusing on combining live, work, and play in a single active community, a field often described as "Smart Growth." A generation of real estate organizations and investors, however, will apply those principals with the intensive involvement of creative, entrepreneurs and bohemians, from beginning to end.

What you will see is something akin to placing the energetic population of Greenwich Village and Silicon Valley with art oriented communities like Athens and Ann Arbor into wondrous pedestrian oriented urban fabric that are filled with tourists and retirees.

On why independent businesses rock and Wal-Mart, uh doesn't.... In Iowa alone, Wal-Mart wiped out 555 grocery stores, 298 hardware stores, 293 building supply stores, 161 variety stores, 158 women's clothing stores, 153 shoe stores, 116 drugstores, and 111 men's clothing stores.

That's why you may want to remind yourself why you like that unique restaurant you always eat at... Places like these are the social and commercial backbone of our communities. They also expose the lie that independent stores ar a thing of the past, destined to go the way of the horse and buggy.

Neighborhoods all over are now flourishing with vital, valuable locally owned businesses. American entrepreneurial urge is strong and can only be extinguished if folks like you and I turn our backs on small distinctive stores in favor of big boxes.

What Makes an Urban Center? — Whitehouse Square Characteristics

• Neighborhood has a discernible center. This is often a square or a green.
• Most dwellings are within five to ten minutes walk of the center, an average of roughly 1,500 sq. ft.
• There are a variety of dwelling types; usually houses, row houses, and apartments so that younger and older people, singles and families, the poor and the wealthy may find places to live.
• There are recreation area and parks within 1/4 mile of all dwellings.
• At the edge of the neighborhood, there are shops and workplaces of sufficient variety types to supply the weekly needs of the household.
• Streets within the neighborhood frame a connected network which disperses traffic by providing a variety of pedestrian and vehicular routes to any destination.
• Parking lots and garage doors rarely front on the street. Parking is relegated to the rear of the buildings usually accessed from alleys.

For more information on participating in this development project, please CONTACT US.