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Using Technology, Urbanism, and Missing Middle Housing to Deliver a Post-Car Neighborhood
Culdesac selected Opticos to lead the master planning process, design a collection of housing types, and serve as the overall design director for the project. Opticos coordinated the multi-disciplinary team which included a civil engineer, landscape architect, lighting consultant, commercial/food and beverage consultant, and architect of record
Car-Free Suburban Phoenix Development Offers Transit Incentives for Tenants
"Even though Phoenix has a light-rail transit system, Arizona’s sprawling largest city is probably one of the last places one might expect a private developer to build a residential community where cars are outlawed. Yet Bloomberg CityLab reports that this very thing is happening in the Phoenix suburb of Tempe.
Oddly enough, the carless apartment community now rising on 17 acres next to a light-rail station there is called Culdesac. Set to open in 2022, the $170 million Culdesac Tempe is being billed by its developer, also called Culdesac, as “the first car-free neighborhood built from scratch in the U.S.” Residents who rent apartments at Culdesac Tempe must abide by clauses in their leases that prohibit them from parking a car anywhere within a quarter-mile of the community.
To sweeten the deal, Culdesac is offering a wide array of carrots to encourage residents to ditch car ownership. Included in the rent: complimentary Lyft Pink subscriptions, discounted fees for Bird scooters, an Envoy car-share membership and free unlimited Valley Metro transit passes. The development itself will have a plaza with scooter docks, car-share parking spaces and ride-hail pickup zones next to the light-rail station.
In addition, the 761-unit apartment community is designed to allow residents to access some basic everyday needs on foot: it will also have a grocery store, cafe and co-working space.
The community’s general manager, Lavanya Sunder, told CityLab that so far, tenants are eagerly chomping on the carrots. “We’re finding that most people moving in are not planning to keep their cars,” she said. “They don’t have a car now or are planning on selling it, partly because we will have this multitude of mobility options onsite.”
And while skeptics wonder whether Culdesac Tempe residents will be at a disadvantage getting around the rest of Metro Phoenix when they give up their cars, and the COVID-19 pandemic has caused many to worry about travel on public transit, another countervailing trend, the rise of remote work, appears to be increasing Culdesac’s appeal. As of last week, 33 leases have been signed for the 260 units slated to open between summer 2022 and spring 2023, and another 300 prospective tenants have put down $100 deposits to remain on the project’s waiting list. Rents start at $1,090 for studio apartments and $1,250 for one-bedroom units, figures well below the average monthly rent of $1,700 for apartments in Tempe, according to RENTCafé data."
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