Concourse wins top prize for new urbanism

The mammoth Crosstown Concourse has received a mammoth design award: grand prize from the 2018 Congress for The New Urbanism (CNU).

The $200 million renovation of a vacant, 1.5 million-square-foot Sears facility won the top award among projects submitted from across the world.

The 11 professional winners and three student winners of the CNU’s annual Charter Awards were announced Friday in Savannah, Georgia, where the nonprofit organization held its 2018 conference. About 1,500 people attended the four-day event focused on innovations and strategies in building better cities and towns.

The Charter Awards recognize projects that help revitalize and create “coherent” cities, neighborhoods and metro regions, an organization statement states.

“Excellence in architecture and urban design is more than a beautiful building, street, or neighborhood,” Lynn Richards, CNU president and chief executive, said in a release. “It’s how a design improves the quality of lives of the people living, working, and playing in these areas.”

Memphis-based architectural firm Looney Ricks Kiss in association with Vancouver-based DIALOG designed the renovation of Crosstown Concourse.

Their design removed about 300,000 square feet from a 1.5 million-squarefoot structure but made space for 265 apartments, a public charter school, a YMCA, Church Health, restaurants, shops, and a 425-seat theater.

But the development has been intentional about having its tenants and visitors be “better together” through partnerships, connections and engagement among residents, service providers, educators and businesses.

“The project teaches what can happen when typical models of development are put aside in favor of local reinvestment and direct community engagement,” LRK principal Tony Pellicciotti said in a prepared statement.

“One of only a handful of the surviving behemoth retail centers built by Sears in the early 20th century, Crosstown Concourse stepped beyond its peers’ rehabilitation model and envisioned an entirely new collaboration between a structure and the people it serves,” he said.

The other winners were projects from across the U.S. and in South Africa, England, Costa Rica, Argentina and Iran.