DEVELOPMENT RUN AS A STUDIO
THE DEVELOPMENT STUDIO
At The Development Studio, we apply highly-specialized expertise honing the craft of walkable urban real estate development to find untapped opportunities and create the extraordinary.
Where We Work.
Defined by resilience, the places we work were built during the Industrial Revolution- from 1880s to 1940s - as dense, mixed-use blocks where residential and commercial coexist at human scale. Multiple indicators signal where to find the ones with the potential to become exceptional walkable urban place.
This pattern is repeatable and scalable: our metrics show that the greatest opportunities sit in smaller to mid-sized metropolitan areas that are large enough to have demand, small enough that they are still some of the best kept secrets.
How We Work.
SEEK
Identify key corners and corridors, get on the ground locally, meeting everyone from customers at local businesses to city leadership.
STUDY
Look for telltale signs of opportunity from events and culture to businesses and infrastructure finding the right chemistry.
CREATE
Craft the right vision, in the right place, at the right time to add to what is already happening. Authored, not assembled.
Why We Do It This Way.
Distinguished by AMBIT+LIMEN - breadth and depth across the entire process, honing the craft of walkable urban development with authorship to create meaningful places.
A practice at the intersection of the end and the beginning.
What happened here has not yet come to pass. Artifacts of the past, registered in the urban fabric, all around us influencing what is and what will be.
Two Traditions. One Practice.
At the University of Michigan, I studied under Christopher Leinberger who coined the word “walkable urban.” My thesis critic was Lars Lerup - originator of the stim/dross framework that became Alan Berger’s drosscape.
My Master’s thesis extended drosscape from noun to verb phrase “drossing urban fabric” - capital-extracted landscapes neither too diminished to eliminate, nor valuable enough to invest existing in-between an end and a beginning.
