Sterilizing Development Arrives in Goshen

Goshen has seen a remarkable renaissance over the past 20 years, not just in its downtown, but also in the community as a whole. Art, entrepreneurship, food, entertainment, retail commerce, and recreation are blossoming in the city’s rich culture. As such, Goshen has become a model of success among northern Indiana municipalities and an increasingly vibrant destination. Much of this success is due to the vision and tireless efforts of individuals working to preserve and develop the downtown and the civic life that enriches it.

Image: 1917 Sanborn map compilation

It is important, however, to also recognize the importance of Goshen’s built environment. A glance at the 1917 Sanborn fire insurance map of Goshen will reveal how few buildings have been torn down in the past one hundred years. Most of the loss of significant downtown buildings has occurred on the block north of the courthouse which, as a result, continues to suffer from blight. This is in direct contrast to many surrounding cities such as Elkhart and South Bend where mid-century urban renewal projects based in modernist function-based zoning resulted in the demolition of many buildings and an ensuing urban blight that has plagued their downtowns.

The architectural and urban language of Goshen is typical of midwestern towns. Traditionally proportioned brick buildings with aesthetically pleasing window treatments, ornamental cornices, and readily recognizable entrances at the human scale unify the downtown and create a sense of urban enclosure. In addition to this, the individual care and detail given to each building enlivens the street and provides a physical demonstration of the respect their builders had for the city and their rôle not only in its built environment, but in its civic life.

Image: Looking north on Main Street in 1915. Courtesy Goshen Historical Society

Like other traditional cities, the footprint of each building is derived from the lot layout of the city, with each lot and its associated façade sharing space on the busy street it serves. The closer to the main commercial or matrix route (Main Street in Goshen) the more valuable, and therefore smaller, the lot size. More significant buildings, such as the theatre may take up more frontage, but they relay their civic importance through their detailing and scale. Few but the most civically significant buildings rise above two stories.

Image: Wallingford. Figure-ground from “The Changing Morphology of Suburban Neighborhoods” by Anne Vernez Moudon

The two story height, lot-scaled façade widths, and detailed cornices paired with the width of the street all combine to create a time-tested set of urban proportions that promote human security, commercial success, and pedestrian traffic. The varying cornices provide uniform urban enclosures, just like the rooms in a house, neither too tall nor too wide, but simultaneously providing variation and interest at the scale of each lot. City, street, block, lot, and building function at a human scale that is understandable and welcoming.

If there is one quality that unifies these various characteristics, (and the traits of any successful traditional urbanism) it could perhaps best be described as neighborliness. Every building is engaged with those around it in a lively conversation that is neither overbearing or unwelcoming.

Initial design for development by Ins!te Developments, LLC. This design has been revised to be less jail-like at the request of Mayor Stutsman, but this rendering is still on the Redevelopment Commission webpage as of 6/18/2019.*

Over the past year, the Redevelopment Commission has approved proposals by Ins!te Development, LLC a Mishawaka-based development company headed by international real estate investors for projects all located near the millrace and historic historic Hawks factory building. Most significant of these projects is the development known as the River Arts Building. The project proposes a block-sized, 4-story structure with an interior courtyard. The building will be clad in a patchwork of cheap materials including concrete panels, corrugated steel, and what looks like concrete block or perhaps brick veneer, with occasional windows, balconies, and overhangs either protruding or receding from the otherwise monolithic block. In addition to the unprecedented hight of the building, its sheer size presents an unreconcilable rift with its surrounding buildings and the rest of downtown. It is a 4-story block-sized monolith which, in the developer's own words, directs itself towards its residents and not the surrounding city. The proposal appears (in the most recent rendering) to be very similar to what has been built in Mishawaka and uses materials, façade proportions, brutal window treatments, and a complete lack of human scale. No attempt has been made to integrate building scale, materials, or historic urban building patterns.

Views of the more recently updated design showing the building footprint and attempts to conceal the 4th floor. These images speak for themselves.

This exact project type is well known in cities around the country and is rapidly becoming a major threat to historic urban areas. One such area (among many) is Charlotte, North Carolina where more than 20,000 units are either complete or under construction. These buildings are out of character with their surroundings in scale, materials, and proportion. Their designers attempt to mitigate their massiveness by applying a variety of exterior finishes in a seemingly patternless collage, often mixing brick, cement board, and corrugated metal. In my hometown of Richmond, Virginia one prominent traditional architect has named this kind of form "RPQ, the Random Patchwork Quilt Style.” As with the current “River Arts” proposal, the incongruity of these developments is a telltale symptom of their greater threat.

Practitioners and citizens in cities that have been effected by these projects have identified the the core issues with this type of development based on the damage that has been done in their neighborhoods and in other cities. Chief among these issues is the fact that projects like this are motivated by short-sighted commercial interests on the part of the developer (and often on the part of city officials), but do so to the long-term detriment of the city.

In Charlotte, a group called Civic By Design has effectively defined the dense, cheap apartment blocks appearing in American cities as "sterilizing development.” To quote their definition: "Sterilizing development can be defined as new development that is too dense, too tall, too quick and diluting the funky character that makes our historic neighborhoods special. These new designs are completely different in character and feel, quality, and style of bland, boring, beige, behemoth boxes all with the same look, the same standards, same floor plans. This coarse grain approach is wiping out affordable housing and hole-in-the-wall neighborhood hang-outs, forcing people out and changing both the character and the social structure. Developments with weak design and poor construction will not age well and quickly become passé, leaving neighborhoods to deal with the negative consequences in their wake.”

In addition to this, these types of development are the antithesis of the small-scale, incremental, lot-sized development that has historically provided a diverse and varied opportunity for residents and retailers to live, grow, and do business. Take a typical block of downtown Goshen: each building is of a similar height and width, has similar window treatments, a cornice, shop windows, etc. Variation and diversity are the rule, not the exception, but as a whole they present a unified streetscape that has been shown over the last millenia to provide the best environment for sustainable growth and financial resilience. Some are slightly taller than others, some are better maintained than others, some have lower rent than others, some have small spaces available for first time businesses or single residents. Some can be purchased and maintained by regular citizens with regular incomes.

An exhibit by Tom Low of Civic By Design showing alternative fine-grain development (incorporating existing historic structures) compared to the coarse-grain current developer model

This is important because a large, block-sized development represents a huge investment ($22 million combined in the case of this development) and a correspondingly large maintenance budget. Only a development company with significant resources can pool that much funding, which in turn provides them with unassailable bargaining powers with the city.

This may work well if, as a developer, you can afford the staggering cost of entry. Everything will be shiny and new, maintenance costs will be low, franchises are happy to move into commercial space, and rents can be kept high. But what happens over time? What happens if the neighborhood takes a downturn, or if the developer goes bankrupt, or if the management loses interest or doesn’t maintain the property? It is easy to realize the loss of sustainability with such a lack of diversity. Because the scale of the project is so large, the scale of the resulting blight will be just as large. This becomes more concerning when we realize that the typical large developer or management company has little to no stake in the local community and the long-term success of the project.

Small-scale, incremental development, by contrast, provides a built in defense against this risk by breaking up the block or developed area into economically discrete, self-dependent units which can be purchased, maintained, and improved with a much smaller budget by local private citizens. It has also been successfully demonstrated that, even if poorly maintained, this type of development can yield higher tax revenue, (which should inform the use of TIF funding) as well as the added benefit of supporting a lower barrier to entry for private development.

As Goshen continues to grow and thrive, we need to consider what kind of city we are and what that city will look like in another 20 years. Increasing residential density in downtown Goshen is not only a good idea, it is the future. It will be happening more and more in the coming years whether we like it or not. If it where not for the foresight of the property owners and developers who saw a promise in Goshen’s downtown 20 years ago, the city would not be what it is today. Let us continue that tradition of thoughtfulness and forward thinking. Much of what I have written here is said much better by the Congress for the New Urbanism and Strong Towns. I urge anyone interested in learning more about these topics to pursue them in more detail through the many books, conferences, websites, and other resources available.

For a much more in-depth understanding of these concepts, here is a link to an essay from a blog I co-founded in 2009 that addresses the issues through the lens of my hometown of Richmond, Virginia: http://urbanscalerichmondvirginia.blogspot.com/2010/05/unchanging-in-architecture.html

Three articles that are especially relevant:

• https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2019/6/14/traditional-development
• https://www.cnu.org/publicsquare/2019/03/27/context-based-form-language-mixed-use-main-street-buildings
• https://www.cnu.org/publicsquare/2019/06/03/where-building-types-make-sense-zoning

*Update: the city has added the new renderings of the project to the Redevelopment Commission webpage as of 6/19/2019.

Update 2/24/21: for a recent look at this type of development, check out Well There's Your Problem's video on "five-over-ones":