Project of the Year
Metro Senior Housing & CityPark

"Mixed housing types create a diverse community."

A high-rise office building looms over this community of market-rate townhouses and affordable seniors housing. In the shadow of the high-rise sits a 1-acre park that serves the residential and office parcels, plus an adjacent retail complex. Together, they form the new town center of Foster City, a small city south of San Francisco.

The successful integration of two housing types with existing nonresidential development garnered this community the Builder's Choice Project of the Year award. The judges called the site plan a model solution to many of the challenges facing the building industry today, such as affordability, mixing residential and commercial uses, and working with a difficult site. "This project celebrates connection to--rather than buffer from--it's surroundings," said one judge. But Metro Senior Housing & CityPark accomplishes much more than successful integration with an existing commmunity. The 2.5-acre project completes the town center vision begun in Foster City during the 1960s. The 100-acre downtown was largely undeveloped in 1983 when Rick Marks, commmunity development director for Foster City, began to work on the town center prroject. Fourteen years later, only 1.3 acres remain vacant.

The judges applauded the diversity of the new Metro Senior Housing & CityPark neighborhood and its attempts to encourage interaction among residents, office workers, and shoppers. The community consists of 60 apartment units for low-income seniors and 40 townhouses for singles, couples, and emptynesters. The park between the two residential parcels eases the density of 40 units per acre. The pedestrian-friendly site plan links residential areas to public streets and the central park.

The site sat vacant for more than 10 years after the completion of the retail and office sections. Previous proposals for the residential parcels were unacceptable to the city, according to developer Mark Kroll of Regis Homes of Northern California, one of the firms involved in the winning project. The city turned down plans for single-family detached housing because they didn't fit the high-density character of this urban district. And Marks says the scale and design of plans for mid- to high-rise multifamily buildings did not fulfill the city's vision for the site.

Planner and architect Alexander Seidel, of SEIDEL/HOLZMAN, responded to the city's vision and brought building heights down to a street-friendly scale. Townhouses are two and three stories; the seniors apartments are four stories over a parking garage. "This provides an intermediate level of scale between the retail and office developments," Seidel says. To comply with the city's desire to offer affordable seniors housing, Regis Homes teamed with Bridge Housing Corp., California's largest not-for-profit housing developer. The symmetrical site plan mixes housing types instead of building seniors housing nad townhouses on separate parcels. "Seidel has a good architectural eye. This was a tough site to work with–basically, it is a postage stamp-sized property on two sides of a park," says Marks.

The existing park on the site was rarely used. It was nothing more than a grassy hump 2 to 3 feet high with undeveloped land on either side. When Kroll and Marks studied pedestrian traffic patterns, they found that people avoided the area altogether. Landscape architect Paul Lettieri of Guzzardo & Associates crafted the new park's successful solution, using broad paths to encourage pedestrian traffic between new and existing sections of the town center.

The judges applauded the park for providing a central area for social interaction. Office workers eat in the park during the day, and seniors pass through to walk to the nearby shopping center.

Seidel's site plan for Metro Senior Housing & CityPark succeeds in creating a community where pedestrians and automobiles are equally at home. Tandem garages eliminate long lines of garage doors along the streetscape. The judges admired auto courts within the development, noting that the paving was handled well by using interlocking pavers instead of asphalt. "Creating internal courts for cars worked with the scale of these buildings to create a pedestrian-friendly environment," says Seidel.

Townhouse street facades welcome residents and visitors with front stoops and large windows. Views into mini-courtyards minimize exposure to service and loading area of adjacent retail complex. Says Seidel, "The streetside of the project conveys a tailored, conservative appearance. But once you enter the courtyard side, the project truly opens up."

Foster City's design guidelines required the use of colors that would be compatible with the existing community. The judges praised the subtle coloring on the stucco exteriors used throughout the project. Seidel says he likes the metal roofs, also required by the guidelines, because they give the design "a crisp, distinctive character."

Within one year of its grand opening, all of the apartments were leased and the townhouses were sold. The seniors buildings include one- and two-bedroom units renting fo $335 to $685 a month. The two- and three-bedroom townhouses with garages sold for $244,000 to $293,000.

---Susan Jenkins