Plaza Vieja in Havana, from Ken Hughes' (KF '01) travels in March 2003.

Spring 2004 Fellow, Scholar, and Faculty Updates

Carolina Arias-Smith (KS ’02) is working at Cooper Johnson Smith Architects, Inc. in Tampa.

Malik Benjamin (KS ’02) began working for de la Guardia Victoria Architects and Urbanists in Coral Gables in January 2004.

Since the publication of Charles Bohl’s book Place Making: Developing Town Centers, Main Streets, and Urban Villages (ULI, 2002), the director of the Knight Program has been in great demand as a speaker, and has presented more than fifteen lectures on topics related to the book’s themes at national and international conferences, including lectures in Stockholm, Sweden and Brugges, Belgium.

Inspired by his Knight Program Fellowship, Tom Borrup (KF ’02) resigned as executive director of Intermedia Arts in 2003, after almost twenty-three years heading one of the country's most noted community-based arts centers. He founded Community and Cultural Development, a consulting business working with cities, nonprofits, and foundations to foster synergy between their economic, civic, and cultural development efforts. Clients have included the City of Chicago, the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations, and several nonprofit community-based arts groups. He has written several articles for the Grantmakers in the Arts Reader, the Ford Foundation Reports, and Community Arts Network. He is currently working on a book for Wilder Publishing and Partners for Livable Communities that will be a guide to community cultural development. He will be heading two sessions on the arts and neighborhood livability at the national conference of Americans for the Arts in Washington, D.C. in July 2004.

Hector Burga (KS ’01) is employed at Torti Gallas and Partners in Washington, D.C., where he is working on several Hope VI projects. He is also an adjunct faculty member at Montgomery Community College in Rockville, MD.

Carol Coletta (KF '03) is co-leader of "The Young and the Restless," a six-city study to determine where college-educated twenty-five- to thirty-four-year-olds are moving and why. She is conducting focus groups in Providence, Philadelphia, Tampa Bay, Richmond, Memphis, and Portland, OR, while economist Joe Cortright is analyzing their census data. One clear message is that talented young people are attracted to dense, mixed use, walkable communities, ideally served by transit with plenty of options for things to do. Results of the study will be published later this year. 

Knight Professor in Community Building Jaime Correa recently established a new firm, Jaime Correa and Associates.

Pennsylvania State Representative Robert Freeman (KF ’03) is the author of House Bill 500, signed into law during the 2003-2004 session of the legislature. The bill established an Elm Street program in Pennsylvania that targets deteriorated urban residential neighborhoods in proximity to a downtown for revitalization. Modeled after the successful Main Street program that targets commercial downtowns for revitalization, the Elm Street bill will use similar tools and techniques to revitalize urban residential neighborhoods close to a downtown.

William Gietema, Jr. (KF ’02) was one of the instructors for the Knight Program’s executive education course, Introduction to Finance for Real Estate Development, in January 2004.

C.C. Holloman (KF ’01) recently transitioned to being a full-time consultant. She holds a position as Expert Consultant for the City of Miami; in that capacity she continues to work closely with the West Coconut Grove community on revitalization initiatives. Significant developments have included passage of the Neighborhood Conservation District Plan in July 2003, a historic preservation project, and a transit oriented development project. She recently worked on the Urban Tropical Garden project, which united twenty neighbors in a successful effort to create a garden in an alley scheduled to be paved. She is also a contributing columnist on gentrification issues for the Westside Gazette (Broward County).

Leslye Howerton (KS ’03) took a one-year leave of absence from her position as a staff architect at Torti Gallas and Partners to enroll in the Suburb and Town Design graduate program.

Last spring, Ken Hughes (KF '01) taught a course on growth and land use planning at the University of New Mexico. As an extension of his Knight Fellowship research on plazas, he took his planning class to Cuba in March 2003 to learn from successful plaza-centered revitalizations in Havana and Trinidad. He also presented his case study on plazas at the APA National Planning Conference in Chicago, the Rocky Mountain Land Use Conference in Denver, and numerous venues in New Mexico. And in his role as chief state planner for New Mexico, he has funded downtown redevelopment charrettes for the New Mexico communities of Taos, Gallup, Las Vegas, and Los Ranchos.

Jennifer Hurley’s (KF ’01) firm, Hurley~Franks & Associates (HFA), worked with the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation in conjunction with the NYC mayor’s office to design and organize a series of neighborhood workshops conducted in July and August 2003 to solicit public involvement regarding spending priorities for redevelopment of Lower Manhattan neighborhoods. Jennifer edited the New Urban Post issue VI “On Public Process,” published in September 2003.  HFA is also preparing the written Report and Urban Design Plan for the Knight Program’s charrette in Coatesville, PA, in October 2003.

Gloria Katz (KF '02) is working with the schools of Architecture and Planning at Florida Atlantic University to bring a Design Center to Broward County that is committed to educating the public, government officials, and government staff members on smart growth and New Urbanism; plans are to establish a workforce housing project as an example of how these concepts can work and still bring in a profit.

In his position as director of Strategic Planning and Policy for the Cuyahoga County (OH) Treasurer’s Office, Howard Katz (KF ’03) was the architect of the Housing Enhancement Loan Program (HELP), which won a 2003 U.S. EPA National Award for Smart Growth Achievement in the category of policies and regulations. This linked deposit program provides low-interest loans for residential property improvement in Cleveland's older suburbs. Since 1999 the program has generated over 4,700 loans totaling more than $57 million. Howard is currently a visiting professor at Cleveland-Marshall Law School. One of the courses he is teaching is Land Use Control. In July 2003, he addressed the Greater Cleveland Suburban Council Association on issues facing the city and first-ring suburbs, including predatory lending and vacant land assembly.

In her role as program director of Duluth LISC, Pam Kramer (KF ’03) is coordinating a year-long series of monthly guest editorials in the Duluth News Tribune. The series focuses on elements of building a healthy community. Pam developed the idea for the series as her Knight Fellowship research project, and some of the contributing writers will be Knight Fellows. Philip Langdon (KF ’01) wrote an editorial on fitting more people into existing neighborhoods that ran in the paper in February.

Philip Langdon (KF ’01) joined the editorial staff of the New Urban News in June 2002 and is now senior editor there. He is co-author of New Urbanism: Comprehensive Report and Best Practices Guide, third edition (New Urban News, 2003), and a regular contributor to the "Place" pages of the Sunday Hartford Courant commentary section.

Rick Lopez (KS ’00) has been working with de la Guardia Victoria Architects and Urbanists in Coral Gables since 2001, and frequently works with Ernesto Buch, Architect, who collaborates with the firm.

Joyce Marin (KF ’01) has been a frequent contributor to The Town Paper. Her article “Local Economy and Traditional Neighborhoods” appeared in the Spring 2004 issue. She was recently reelected as councilwoman for the Borough of Emmaus, PA.

As an extension of his Knight Fellowship research, Peter Musty (KF ’01) developed an approach to design guidelines called the Context Based Frontage Code (www.frontagecode.com), which is now in place in Hastings, MN and is under approvals in three other communities in the state.

Neal Payton (KF ’02), a principal at Torti Gallas and Partners, received a 2003 AIA Award for Urban and Regional Planning for the Charlottesville Commercial Corridors Study.  His plan for Belmont Heights – a Hope VI revitalization in Tampa, FL, was awarded a Community by Design Award from the AIA's Housing Group in 2004.

Chris Podstawski (KS ’01) works with Dover, Kohl & Partners in Coral Gables. He has recently been involved in the design of several mixed-use projects in locations including the Florida panhandle, Tennessee, and Colorado.

Russ Preston (KS ’02) is working with Cornish Associates on the development of new homes and urban spaces Mashpee Commons. He splits his time between the primary town architect’s office, Imai Keller Moore, in Boston, and a new design office on site at Mashpee Commons. 

Erin Pryor (KS ’01) is working with Cooper Johnson Smith Architects in Tampa.

Milt Rhodes (KF ’02, KS ’03) took a leave of absence from his position as director of Town Planning and Program Development at the North Carolina Smart Growth Alliance to enroll in the Suburb and Town Design graduate program at the University of  Miami School of Architecture.

Lee Sobel (KF ’01) edited the New Urban Post issue VIII “On Retail,” published in February 2004. He was also one of the instructors for the Knight Program’s executive education course, Introduction to Finance for Real Estate Development, in January 2004. In February 2004 he delivered a talk titled “The Critical Commercial Component of the Smart Code” at The Smart Code Workshop in San Diego.

Ben Starrett (KF ’01) recently helped his organization, the Funders’ Network for Smart Growth and Livable Communities, move from its start-up phase to become an independent not-for-profit Florida corporation based in Coral Gables.

Peter Swift (KF ’02) is opening an office in Santa Barbara, CA. He has been appointed as co-chair of the Urban Design Task Force for the Congress of the New Urbanism. Dhiru Thadani (KF ’01), has been co-chair of the committee for a number of years. Peter is currently collaborating on projects in Texas with Bill Gietema (KF ’02).

Dhiru Thadani (KF ’01) received a 2003 Vision Award for Planning and Design Projects by the Committee of 100 on the Federal City for his 1998 design for a neighborhood park. His design transforms an 80’ x 80’ site, formerly four rowhouses, into a pocket park.

Marie L. York (KF ’03) hosted the third session of the Florida Public Officials Design Institute at Abacoa in November 2003. Wilton Manors Vice Mayor Scott Newton, Port St. Lucie Vice Mayor Patricia Christensen, West Palm Mayor Lois Frankel, and Palm Beach Commissioner Jeff Koons were the participating officials. This was a unique Design Institute session in that two officials, Mayor Frankel and Commissioner Koons, chose the same project—thirty acres in downtown West Palm Beach adjacent to the historic railway station and multi-modal transportation center along the Florida East Coast Railroad. This parcel will be the future home of a transit-oriented development for workforce housing. It also includes federal, state, county, city, and privately held lands. The ownership patterns require an unusual collaborative effort that includes the newly formed South Florida Regional Transportation Authority as well. Given these complexities it became clear that a stakeholder task force needed to be convened in order to manage the project. As a follow-through to the recommendations made by the experts at the Design Institute, the Treasure Coast Regional Planning Council is taking the lead in assisting the newly formed task force to proceed with the planning.