SPRING & LOCUST APARTMENTS
Downtown Fayetteville is well-known as one of the most walkable neighborhoods in Arkansas. However, despite a best-in-class downtown masterplan calling for a full range of missing-middle housing, the area has been mostly subject to the extremes of development products - large expensive single family homes and mega-apartment projects with huge parking garages.
MBL proposed something different. Leveraging our experience with small and medium scale urban housing types, our design studio produced a building that respects the 2-3 story scale of downtown, while providing our client with a nearly unprecedented (for Fayetteville) 75 units on one acre. We accomplished this without the use of expensive podiums or parking garages - everything is surface parked, and the building is only 3-stories with no elevators.
The building respects hyper-local design traditions. Beloved historic buildings in the surrounding blocks feature a mix of inter-war modern syles, including elements of deco and industrial detailing. The building’s design utilizes these elements along with interior courtyards, cast stone stoops, cordons, lintels, and cornices that signal the urban evolution of downtown.
Understanding the role design plays in the public’s perception of new housing is critical to building positive consensus around market-rate infill. Context sensitive design is the ultimate ‘big tent’, with enough room for both concerned neighbors and for-profit developers.
The building is in the entitlement process and scheduled for construction in 2024.