Media Room

City of Richmond Sets the Vision for a Bold Makeover

June 24, 2009–Richmond, CA–Opticos Design, Inc., On Friday June 19th the City of Richmond completed a 5-day public visioning process, lead by Opticos Design, Inc., to establish the bold vision for the future of the 23rd Street and Macdonald Avenue corridors. This area, particularly south of Macdonald Avenue, provides one of the prime opportunities in the entire Bay Area for the long-term creation of a new, complete, high-intensity, urban neighborhood within walking distance to BART, not to mention Amtrak. The bold new vision will utilize the latest zoning reform tool, Form-Based Codes, to incentivize its implementation. Several primary goals of this vision are to reinforce the local, cultural identity along 23rd Street (over 30,000 people showed up this year for their annual Cinco de Mayo celebration) and to show the larger development community what opportunities exist within Richmond near the BART station and Macdonald Avenue as a result of this bold vision.

This vision would reinforce the sustainable future growth pattern for the Bay Area as visualized by the “Grow Smart Bay Area” document recently released by the Association of Bay Area Governments (http://growsmartbayarea.org/). To visualize the transformation of the area south of Macdonald Avenue you need to imagine the underdeveloped sites, rundown buildings, and parking lots transforming into vibrant public spaces and streets engaged by mid-rise residential and commercial buildings. The buildings would have unimpeded views to the west toward Mt. Tamalpais and the Hills to the East. They would also be less than a 5-minute walk to BART or Amtrak, meaning one member of a family could commute to San Francisco and the other to Sacramento or Davis. The volume of new residences and commercial uses would activate and revitalize the once vibrant Macdonald Avenue so that it would function as the neighborhood main street. All of this would happen within two blocks of the Richmond Civic Center, which is a mid-century architectural landmark that currently is undergoing a $150 Million renovation.

Opticos Design is at the forefront of rethinking in the way we perceive modern space and living. They are creating and reinforcing walkable urban communities as an important means of lowering carbon emissions, improving health, and incubating local businesses. Opticos is one of 30 founding B Corporation members in California (www.bcorporation.net), committed to a triple bottom line of environmental, economic, and social responsibility. Opticos Principals Daniel Parolek and Karen Parolek are at the forefront of a revolutionary zoning reform called Form-Based Coding (www.formbasedcodes.org), authoring the book “Form-Based Codes: A Guide for Urban Designers, Planners, Municipalities, and Developers,) published by Wiley in 2008. They were also recently one of 20 firms from across the country invited to participate in the Daniel Burnham Memorial Competition in Chicago, Illinois.