Baldwin & Sons’ Promenade at Otay Ranch Town Center was awarded the Circulate Mobility Certification on November 1, 2018 from a smart growth advocacy group Circulate San Diego. Colin Parent, Executive Director and General Counsel at Circulate San Diego said, “The committee members were very impressed with the project. We are excited to support it.”
Promenade is a transit-oriented, mixed-use development that includes two hotels, a public park, townhomes and mixed-use apartments with ground floor retail. As a walkable mixed-use development, Promenade has a strong focus on human-scaled architecture. The community streets are designed to provide pedestrian-friendly features such as gateway elements, wayfinding signage, tree-lined landscape parkways and enhanced paving.
The project will offer a wide range of housing choices while remaining a walkable high-density urban neighborhood. Homebuyers will be able to choose from the Alay townhomes, featuring private back yards (a first for attached homes in Otay Ranch) and the Suwerte condomiums which offer six floorplans offering two, three and four bedroom options.
For perspective residents looking to for rental opportunities, Promenade will feature apartment homes in a format new to the Otay Ranch market. The innovative architecture of the apartments will include an above-grade 5-story parking structure surrounded by the residential units. This configuration provides security and visual appeal since the parking structure can’t be easily accessed from outside the development or seen from the street. Additionally, this style of architecture eliminates the need for large areas of surface parking lots and encourages pedestrian activity through higher density and enhanced pedestrian-oriented design. Due to efficient use of land, residents can enjoy a central location in a walkable neighborhood.
Promenade community will provide abundant active and passive open spaces. At the center of the project is the 2-acre public park equipped with high-end finishes and unique features that create a true destination and district experience. Some of the park program elements are a large interactive water feature with a splash pad, activity lawn and amphitheater, treehouse-style play tower, picnic pavilions with BBQ grills, a flexible use plaza, a modular fitness station, and a bike repair station. Each of the residential neighborhoods contain amenitized open spaces which include children’s playgrounds, dog parks, pools, outdoor games, as well as unprogrammed landscaped leisure gardens with seating.
Town Center Drive, which will become a slow speed central neighborhood street, will have “sharrow” markings, which designate a safe and visible place to ride, and will connect to a larger City-wide bike lane network. The retail spaces and the Hotel along Town Center drive provide large windows on the ground floor, variation in façade treatment, and seating for human-scale architecture.
Another unique design element of the community is a European-born concept of woonerf, or a shared street, which will be used in Alay neighborhood. Rather than having sidewalks and vehicular roadways, these curbless streets are used for walking, biking, driving and socializing. These shared streets will redefine the experience of a typical alley or a regular residential street, both of which give priority to vehicular mobility, by removing the clear division between pedestrian and auto space and thus offering residents a place to interact with their neighbors and children to play.
The project’s design is unique in its efficient use of space and creating a high-quality lifestyle. Promenade residents will be able to walk to jobs, banks, post office, daycare, restaurants, coffee shops, bars, movie theater, gym, shopping, and other daily services without needing their cars.
About the Circulate Mobility Certification The Circulate Mobility Certification, formed in 2012 as the MOVE Alliance and relaunched as the Circulate Mobility Certification in 2018, provides certification for transit-oriented, smart growth projects in the San Diego region. The Circulate Mobility Certification Committee members consist of local experts in smart growth planning and sustainable transit-oriented development disciplines, including planners, developers, urban designers, and transportation engineers. By recognizing and supporting projects which meet the Circulate Mobility Certification criteria, we can help to create complete communities, one project at a time. For more information, go to http://www.circulatesd.org/certified.
About Circulate San Diego Circulate San Diego is a regional non-profit organization dedicated to advancing mobility and making the region a better place to move, work, learn, and play. Our work focuses on creating great mobility choices, more walkable and bikeable neighborhoods, and land uses that promote sustainable growth. For more information, go to www.circulatesd.org.