Charlotte Square Development

Organization Name: SWBR

Project Title: Charlotte Square Development

Project Location: 50, 60-78, 120 Charlotte Street, Rochester, NY 14604

Project Description:
Home Leasing’s Charlotte Street development is unique in its context and market – and innovative in its design and placemaking. Blighted urban parcels and part of an underutilized sunken highway were transformed into a positive development for Rochester’s East End neighborhood. The three-phase project started in the fall of 2015 and completed in September of 2019. Charlotte Square, phases One and Two, are market rate apartments & for-sale townhomes. Phase Three, Charlotte on the Loop, are affordable apartments. Each community is uniquely designed, from each other and their neighbors, and lend to the urban authenticity of the area. The development is stitched together with a pedestrian friendly streetscape and central pocket park – with a sculpture that speaks to Rochester’s flour mill heritage. The Charlotte Square block is traversed by a public walkway – improving the walkability of the development and of the neighborhood by shortening the length of the pedestrian block. Three phases. One idea. To create a diverse living environment using three separate building types and markets – connected by an active, walkable streetscape that engages the public realm and promotes social equity.

Community Impact:
A vacant brownfield property sat derelict in Rochester’s East End neighborhood for decades until a cleanup program readied it for development. After unsuccessful attempts by the City to sell it, Home Leasing a certified B Corporation, purchased it and committed to a market rate apartment and for-sale townhouse project. The City was also undertaking a transformational project to eliminate an aging highway that bisected urban neighborhoods. The nationally touted ‘Inner Loop’ project created excess right-of-way adjacent to the Charlotte Street site, enabling a third development – affordable and supportive housing.

Home Leasing believed that market rate apartments, for-sale townhomes, and affordable housing could co-exist within a single, urban project and be a model of social equity. And they accomplished it in the slow growth, low margin geography of Rochester, NY.

The Charlotte Street development provides high quality housing to a variety of markets. It appropriately densifies a downtown Rochester neighborhood consistent with the City’s revitalization strategies. It’s pedestrian scale, activated streetscape and ‘sense of place’ has convinced renters and buyers alike to invest in downtown Rochester.

Organization Description:
SWBR is a 100+ person design firm with over 50 years in practice. We create environments to positively impact lives through meaningful design. As a multidisciplinary design firm offering architecture, structural, interior, landscape, and graphic design, we feature the latest thinking from a wide range of design professionals. We know the challenges our clients face, we have the vision for success, and we are dedicated to delivering the best possible solution to the markets we serve. This is our expertise.

Team Members:

Architect, Landscape Architect, Interior Design: SWBR
Owner/Developer: Home Leasing
Site/Civil: Passero
Mechanical/Electrical: M/E Engineering
Structural: SWBR (Ph 1)
Structural: Jensen (Ph 2,3)

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