Tomorrow's RTP: Can a new master plan show the way?

Durham -- like Raleigh and Chapel Hill -- has boomed over the past generation or so thanks in large part to the economic driver that is Research Triangle Park.

Maybe you're not one of the 40,000-plus people who commute to the Park everyday. But if you work at a university like Duke or UNC, it's a safe bet that RTP's brand and the star-power it's created for the Triangle in drawing top thinkers has helped to augment those institutions' size and resources. Similarly, everything from small businesses to big-box chain stores depend on the sizable payrolls that follow those regional residents commute in and out of RTP everyday.

But here's something kind of incredible, if you think about it: RTP today is based around much the same planning, zoning, design and development model that it started with during the Eisenhower administration.

The Cold War is over, we all have color TVs, and Ike's vaunted interstate highway system was pretty much finished more than 20 years ago. But the Park -- the central element to our regional branding, since the term "Triangle" was invented by the campus' name -- hasn't had a master plan since about the time they finished building the Edsel.

Just before the weekend came confirmation of something first reported by Triangle Business Journal the previous week: all that's about to change. The Research Triangle Foundation is commissioning a new master plan for the Park.

We don't know yet all the details of what direction they're looking for -- but we can hope at least for a reboot of some of RTP's more anachronistic features.

And given who's been hired to lead the design effort, there's at least a hint that we can do more than hope.

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A Park That's a Park

We talked about this more in depth in BCR's (still in-progress) decade retrospective series Project 20/10, but RTP has as one of its challenges a massively decentralized, sprawling campus nature that was designed for an age when large corporations wanted to come in, plunk down massive campuses isolated from their neighbors and build large, self-contained knowledge, research and manufacturing facilities.

But that model envisioned a world out of the AMC hit show Mad Men, where large "name" corporations were the big game in town and carried the wealth of resources -- financial and human.

Yet today's corporations are, we've argued, more flexible and nimble, with staffing needs that rise and fall more rapidly than in the 60s and 70s. And there's more start-ups than ever before, as supply chains have lengthened with organizations quickly sourcing design, engineering, manufacturing and other activities that were once core from a range of networked partners.

And the nature of workers has changed, too. Sure, the vast majority of Triangle residents live in suburban fashion today as they did in the 50s, but from a workplace perspective, the hottest plays in commercial office space has come from downtown areas like Durham and Raleigh where the "cool" factor of proximity to restaurants, bars, cultural spaces and parks is attractive to urban and suburban workers alike.

Fundamentally, though, RTP is a creature of its creation, with zoning rules and covenants essentially locking the Park into its, well, parklike nature.

One failed Raleigh mayoral candidate snarked last year that we should abandon the park entirely and center growth on the City of Oaks, turning RTP into a state park. Myopic (and Raleigh-centric) as that New Raleigh guest column was, the truth is there's a few miles you could drive along some RTP roads and find yourself thinking you're on a less-scenic Natchez Trace or Blue Ridge Parkway.

Fundamentally, the challenge of RTP is summed up very well in this photograph, which comes from 2009's ULI Reality Check regional planning exercise. Each yellow block below represents 1,500 homes; each red block, 1,900 jobs.

RTP is the red, low-density core between Falls Lake and Jordan Lake. The Triangle has an hourglass figure -- and in the slender waist that's Research Triangle Park, the land isn't used very intensively, and if you work there, you're commuting from somewhere else:

Small wonder, then, that the Triangle consistently gets called one of the most-sprawled out metros in America. If you work in the area that gave the region its rep, it's hard to live anywhere all that close.

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Hints of Tomorrow's RTP

Rick Weddle, head of the Research Triangle Foundation -- the non-profit über-steward of the Park, charged with its ongoing development and economic growth -- has hinted in the recent past that there might be some move afoot to add density to the Park.

Weddle told TBJ back in 2005, shortly after his arrival to steer the Foundation, that he'd be open to looking at denser land uses:

After meeting with more than 150 "influentials and board members" after he took the job last year, Weddle says he concluded that " ... there is a fairly broad perception that the park needs to be spiffed up and brought forward."

He foresees a park with increased density - more buildings with less land surrounding them, perhaps "buildings that go up instead of out." The park's current capacity, based on existing restrictions, would accommodate some 91,000 workers. Those restrictions can be changed, he says.

In other interviews, Weddle's dispelled the notion that the Park would ever have the urban density that, say, downtown Raleigh or Durham do. But he's also made it clear that -- assuming the covenants and policies that give existing large-site corporate Park landowners a say-so in what gets done are changed -- nodes of increased land-use intensity within the Park would be on the horizon.

And it's not hard to see opportunities for those nodes.

Take the NC 54 corridor near Davis Drive, for instance. Nortel's remnants make scant use of the sprawling complex there, and the office buildings fronting the south side of I-40 are some of the older developments in the complex. 

Yet you're also quite close to the I-540/I-40 intersection and you have the I-40/Triangle Expressway connection coming through. And it's likely that a future regional transit system would have a stop near Davis Park, the dense mixed-use community being built in fits and starts near Davis and Hopson.

There's several spots within RTP that have this kind of opportunity. And just maybe the master plan effort -- a $1.7 million, year-long project -- will provide a window into how the Park makes use of such opportunities.

Certainly the info we're seeing in the media and the press release give hope about such considerations. 

The Herald-Sun, for instance, reminds us that the "changes in covenants and restrictions and new development approaches" required of any major changes to the Park, including Wake and Durham Co. sign-off. And the H-S explicitly notes the attractiveness of "nearby business parks and denser, mixed-use developments" like the ATC.

And Weddle, in a positive sign, tells the paper that "everything is on the table" relative to a re-do of the Park's master plan.

The retired IBM executive who led the RFI search committee for the master plan consulting team also hinted at noting a "drastic transformation" in how other research parks work -- a reference perhaps to regional competitors in Charlotte, Winston-Salem and Raleigh, two of which are adjacent to downtown areas and all of which are denser with multi-user buildings available for flexible leasing versus customized, build-to-suit design.

Similarly, the N&O notes in its very informative coverage:

Among the changes on the table is altering RTP's zoning and land-use rules to allow for high-density centers that could be home to retail and residential development - things that are not currently allowed.

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Hints of Transformation in the Consultant Selection?

Of course, we're all just reading tea leaves at this point in terms of where the Research Triangle Foundation wants to take the Park.

But as long as we're just prognosticating and handicapping, one could do a lot worse than scrutinize the background of Cooper, Robertson & Partners (CR&P), the firm selected by the Foundation to lead this $1.7 million effort.

And in this case, the tea leaves have a clear, strong, unmistakeable flavor -- this is not a firm you call in to plan your everyday suburban office park if you're not looking to add density.

The firm was, according to its web site, "founded in 1979 on the core conviction that architecture and urban design are inextricably connected." And one of its best-known projects, Manhattan's Battery Park City, is cited as one of the first examples of the application of Jane Jacobs' smart-growth principles to American cities.

In fact, CR&P's web site lists a number of kinds of projects they get involved with, including individual commercial, retail, academic, civic and recreational structures and sites. And they've done work locally, including planning efforts at UNC and Duke; at the latter, they designed the original Duke South/Clinics expansion (1999) and the new Morris Cancer Center being built adjacent to that, along with a 1993 master plan for all of the hospital campus.

But a significant, even defining focus from the sample project list on their site is on urban infill and revitalization, transit-oriented development and the creation of new planned communities.

No suburban developments stand out, for instance -- except for those cases where they've taken old-model development and added density and urban character.

Across their portfolio, they've worked on projects very familiar to urban-watchers.

Battery Park City is one, of course; the abandoned wharf area was literally buried in landfill from the original World Trade Center site, then transformed by the then-incipient CR&P to form what they aptly describe as "perhaps the most successful new commercial development in the USA"--

The Master Plan proposed two then-radical concepts: 1) extension of the adjacent street grid across the site creating a normalized development pattern while discouraging through traffic; and 2) an open space system with a continuous esplanade, commercial plaza, and neighborhood parks with walkways connecting them to one another and the city. These pedestrian connections and three nearby transit stations eliminate the need for a car.

Plenty of their other master planning and design projects may be familiar to you, too:

• Baltimore's Inner Harbor, where they updated the tourist and commercial destination's master plan as it reached two decades in service, working to improve pedestrian access to the waterfront and connectivity with amenities;
• Boston's Seaport area, a long-abandoned commercial district enlivened with a convention center and new hotels and businesses. CR&P proposed shortening blocks and adding connectivity to bring people back on feet and to encourage retail-scale businesses;
• Reston Heights, Va., where a "50-acre conventional suburban office park" was transformed into "a vibrant and sustainable 24-hour neighborhood with 3.9 million square feet of residential, retail, office, and hotel space," designed with the Washington Metro's Silver Line extension (2015 arrival) in mind;
• The Carlyle development in Alexandria, Va., where a former rail yard was turned into hotel, residential, retail and office space (including the US Patent and Trademark Office's HQ) near a Metro station and Old Town Alexandria;
• Celebration, Fla., the Disney company's try at smart-growth residential and commercial on the edge of the Magic Kingdom, featuring a "main street" with accessible retail and a focus on creating a walkable community.

There's a common theme running across all of these efforts:

Cooper, Robertson & Partners seems to be the firm you call in when you've got underutilized, undesirable space -- a pier, a rail yard, a tired office park, Florida swampland -- and you want to make something signature and modern.

Which if you think about it, is not that far off from some of the parts of RTP that would make sense to see transformed into nodes of density.

If we want to read another tea leaf, it's interesting to see whom the Research Triangle Foundation didn't select.

The Triangle Business Journal reported a week ago that CR&P was one of two finalists for the master planning role, though this is unconfirmed by the RTF.

The other finalist? According to the TBJ, Ayers Saint Gross, themselves a planning and architecture firm with a strong national reputation.

Both firms have done plenty of work for academic clients, sometimes -- as with the star-crossed Allston expansion of the once-land-ravenous Harvard University -- with one doing the original plan and the other providing an update.

But ASG's portfolio leans more heavily academic, and with much less in the way of urban transformation, mixed-use and infill development than seen in CR&P's. (Among its projects: UNC's Carolina North project and the NC School of Science and Math here in Durham.)

Is that a sign that increased density in selected nodes is, in fact, what the RTF is looking for? 

We'll know in a year or so, when the master planning effort is done.

Comments

[Todd P]

Adding a big residential component to RTP would have an interesting impact on Durham from a urban services standpoint. If RTP still cannot be annexed by the City of Durham, is Durham County prepared to offer those urban services - water/sewer/stormwater, fire/police, trash/recycling - needed by thousands of new RTPers? Does Durham County get a new municipality called RTP? Does RTP need to set aside some of their land for DPS schools?

Lots of questions need to be answered.

[Andy S]

Thanks for the informative write-up! Ever since the news broke about the new master plan for RTP, I've been awaiting more info on it. I think adding in higher-density mixed use in this area would be most beneficial. There are so many people who commute to Durham, Raleigh, Cary, Apex, Fuquay-Varina and other surrounding suburbs with miles of traffic jams depending on which way you are heading.

This is probably a stupid question, but would it necessarily be up to Durham to make up the costs for any services to RTP? The park borders several diffent municipalities, is it possible some of the other cities who provide the workforce for this area can pitch in if more services for denser-use are required? I'm honestly curious here.

[Khalid]

I would think the services that would accompany the level potential density within would exceed what Durham City/County currently provide.

We can use Brier Creek as an example for service and assorption rates. There are schools, fire stations, bus routes, etc. in Brier Creek. The developer built critical mass and (to borrow a term I heard someone say) sneezed out a bunch retail boxes. Not quite the type of walkable mixed-use development I envisioned but people love to shop there and the location near the center of the Triangle is impeccable.

It looks like we are headed in a better direction from a Master Plan standpoint with RTP. The Reston, VA plan resonated with me due to the many problems it solved in the process of recreating this space.

This is the biggest economic development project for the Triangle without being hyperbolic. The fate of the Core RTP area will determine this regions physical and economic growth over the next 50 years. It will shape whether we begun just another sprawled out group of Southern cities or a globally competitive region that leads in quality of life for generations to come.

[Khalid]

I want to reiterate that RTP competes on a Global basis and IS a Global brand.

I visited research parks in China that were already contained a mix of retail, residential and office. There was transit as well. These types of parks are popping up all across Asia.

In order for the Triangle to grow up, we have to start thinking on a global scale and not a myopic Raleigh vs. Durham or Downtown vs. the rest mentality.

[Doug Roach]

Transportation, transportation and transportation.
Until or unless those three issues are addressed, all else is hyperbole.

[Khalid]

The design of the park can ease the transportation strain. Residential and near the park eases transportation issues. Denser commercial nodes eases access to transit options. Shopping options around transit stops eases transportation issues.

Traffic is a symptom...not the disease.

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