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Originally Posted by Scottk
what you guys think of the Bradburn new urbanist village in Westminster?
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Overall:
It's good for what it is. Solid example of doing suburbs right, which is after all exactly appropriate for its location way up on, ahem, 120th Avenue. Cannot be mistaken for actual big city urbanism because it's not large/dense enough to support much walking or mixed use, but that was never its purpose, so it's OK.
Specific notes:- The density looks basically comparable to suburban apartment complexes like Rock Creek. Totally appropriate for the location. It's not really any denser than you'd expect in the surrounding community. It's simply rearranged to be more walkable. So great work there. Good model.
- Good work putting the denser buildings closer to 120th Ave, and the houses behind. That's the way it should be. It's not TOD because there's not good transit on 120th, but to the extent possible, they are clustering the highest densities and most intense uses closest to the transportation artery.
- Much like Quebec Square at Stapleton, Bradburn can be forgiven for having a town center with surface parking lots. That's a land bank for future infill, and in another generation it will be fine.
- That said, the biggest weakness with the commercial main street is the homogeneous strip mall architecture. There's not enough variation between the different storefronts, which makes the street look banal and uninteresting. I doubt very many people linger there for long. And it wasn't necessary. Even at that level of density and quality of building materials, they could have done better.
- It's unfortunate that there's such a large setback between the development and 120th. That means 120th will always be a highway, and will never become a main street like Broadway or Colfax. It also means Bradburn will likely remain an isolated pod of walkability, amid the surrounding car-oriented suburban mass. This is a big problem with virtually all new urbanism everywhere in the country, and is certainly not specific to Bradburn. It's why even communities that have a lot of new urbanist projects near each other have never built up a critical mass of urbanism. It's the limiting factor that sets new urbanism's glass ceiling, and it absolutely applies here. That said, Bradburn handles this situation better than most. There's a stream in the setback so at least there's some excuse for it being there, and at least some of the buildings front north and have a sidewalk along the stream. It could become something like a park someday, instead of wasted space.
- The 2 streets that are parallel to 120th (118th and Main Street) appear very well planned to extend into neighboring communities over time, thus reducing the need to ever get on 120th. That's a great move, and legitimately helps reduce the 120th-will-always-be-a-highway problem.
- The fact that it's expensive is a factor of its desirability. There's more demand for walkable communities than there is supply. That doesn't mean Bradburn is bad; it means we need more Bradburns, so we can meet the demand.
Bottom line: Bradburn falls into some of the same traps that all new urbanist projects fall into, but it gets a lot of things right, and does better than most of its peers. If more suburban subdivisions looked like Bradburn, the suburbs would be more pleasant, more sustainable, more affordable, and have less traffic congestion. It is not, however, a good model for places that are already urban like central Denver or Boulder; those places can and should do better.
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