The Orchard

As our client collaborated with the county to understand their goals, they simultaneously worked with our planners who developed a basic framework that the county could get excited about. This evolved into a more formal plan that featured a network of neighborhood blocks connecting to street patterns and when the county asked for more density our designers began to shape the site into a village. For-sale neighborhoods gradually give way to higher densities and commercial uses as the site continues south. Neighborhoods are dotted with open space and amenities, and the entire village is anchored with a ten-acre public park that separates the site from remaining farmland.

The retail plaza occupies a space at the entrance to the site, taking advantage of busy frontage. The retail buildings each employ different forms to create depth and increase visual interest on a small site. The two-story restaurant gives a view of the surroundings and offers tenants visibility for branding. There is a shorter, stone- and glass-clad cafe for a quick serve restaurant or coffee shop, and the retail anchor is a broadly sloped glass enclosed market hall intended for a small grocer.

The outer neighborhoods are for-sale residential, increasing in density from two- and three-story rowhomes to interlocking townhomes until reaching the park on the furthest end of the site. The park pulls double duty as a buffer and drainage area for the floodplain that occupies a  portion  of the site. Parking structures, amenities and the tech campus are strategically clustered under a flight path to the nearby airport, meeting FAA requirements and circulating vehicles away from the lower-density residences.