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Town Center Plan
January 2007
Appendix 4
•
Carpenter Village has a town center (“Village Marketplace”), but even this new, highly visible
and accessible urban development is so far only populated by a few professional offices, two
personal services, and one restaurant. To capture specialty retail potential in the face of highly-
accessible competition like Carpenter Village, it is critical to leverage the
unique, lower-density
rural character
of the Morrisville town center.
Office
•
The study area is part of a large and significant office sub-market. The area is accessible and
desirable, particularly for professional services and small business owners who do not prefer an
office park location.
•
Office occupancy in surrounding areas appears to be relatively high (90% range), but the tenant
mix in those areas is dominated by technology, corporate, and regional sales & distribution. There
are few professional service clusters.
•
There may be significant opportunities for
lifestyle-driven professional office uses
, including
live-work buildings, for architects, graphic designers, lawyers, medical professionals, residential
contracting & service businesses (e.g., interior designers), etc. Based on follow-up assessment,
there is even more reason to believe that opportunities for professional uses that serve the growing
local community (as opposed to RTP-oriented technical service firms) are increasing and that the
town center will be a good location for such uses.
Industrial
•
The study area provides a good location for industrial and distribution uses (due to its accessibility
to the regional market), although most such uses may not be consistent with the community’s
vision for a town center.
Civic and Community Services
•
There is already an important (but not entirely visible) civic base of uses, including fire, police,
town hall, chamber, church, and parks. Recreation and day care uses are located nearby. This
cluster provides the area with the seed of a town center identity.
•
The two gaps in this mix include
education facilities
and
cultural or audience support facilities
, the
latter of which can include dinner theaters, art galleries, amphitheaters, civic & meeting centers,
sports arenas, etc. A children’s theater is one use that has been proposed in the area and can be
considered among others as a potential tenant or anchor use for a civic facility. However, more
work needs to be done to assess the feasibility and long-term viability of such uses.
Pre-Design Town Center Concept
A specific Town Center Concept was developed based partly on the findings from the market opportunities
assessment as well as on team discussions and input from the public at the three background meetings
in early 2006. This preliminary concept was provided as input to the Design Studio. The preliminary, pre-
design concept and its components are discussed below.
Because of the physical constraints on access and development in portions of the study area, a “piecemeal”
redevelopment concept was recommended that would focus on slightly increasing the massing and