A repurposed 1927 Sears facility reimagined as a 21st century vision of urban life Roughly three miles east of downtown Memphis, Tennessee, a new village has come to life. The reinvention of a former Sears mail-order distribution facility, a hulking Art Deco structure that?s sat vacant for decades, not only revitalizes the area, but due to its design and philosophy on urbanism, creates a new one, a bold attempt to build a more welcoming vision of the neighborhood.
Urban planner and design architect Alan Boniface, principal of DIALOG Design, the firm that devised the new look for the Crosstown Commons project, says the aim was to create an ?incubator to experience life in different ways,? a vessel for interaction that reimagines an old industrial building as a vertical neighborhood. Instead of transforming the former 1.5 million-square-foot workspace into a tech hub or luxury downtown residential development, the plan focused on gathering what supporters call urban magnets, while sculpting the huge space into a place that encourages interactions. Developed in part with local groups such as the Crosstown Collaborative, the building now includes a vibrant web of neighbors and commerce much more multifaceted that a typical multi-use development, including small businesses, non-profits, artists, doctors and dentists, even Crosstown High School, all of whom draw students, workers and residents who bump into each other on the new circulation paths and large staircases that...