BY MARK REDDIE

Earlier this month, our leadership team met in Austin for quarterly strategic meetings that focused on growth and the future of our practice. One of the main topics of discussion was the trend toward smaller, more dense urban residential development projects. This shift was recently exemplified in an Arizona Republic article about iconic developer and longtime client DMB’s pivot away from the suburbs and toward urban infill. Developers like DMB are responding to a variety of market forces, including changing demographics, homebuyer preferences, the current state of the economic recovery, and desired return on investment time from a development perspective.

Now that RVi and LVA have joined forces, it is even more apparent how our strengths and experience complement one another in this changing market. Both firms have been on the forefront of residential planning and design since the earliest master planned communities emerged in the 1980s and before, with projects ranging in size from the 43,000-acre Coyote Springs master planned community in Nevada, to Mueller, a 700-acre new urbanist development in Austin, to the 6.8 acre, 81 unit Aire on McDowell urban infill development in Scottsdale, AZ. Each of these projects has its own unique identity and place in the market, and each required a different approach to achieving success. In this article, we will explore 3 important considerations when approaching urban infill development.

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BY MARK SMITH

After a few slow years following the Great Recession, the demand for cemetery planning and design services in the US has now begun to ramp up as state and federal agencies have started spending on a new round of much-needed veterans cemeteries expansions around the country. RVi, as a subconsultant to Gordon Engineering (Chantilly, VA), has been working on several cemeteries as part of a national Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) contract with the VA. Current work includes expansions for South Florida National Cemetery (Lake Worth, FL), The National Cemetery of the Alleghenies (Pittsburgh, PA) and Great Lakes National Cemetery (Flint, MI).

At the state level, we are working as a subconsultant to Pape Dawson (Austin, TX) on two new projects: an expansion of the Central Texas State Veterans Cemetery in Killeen, TX and the Texas State Cemetery Master Plan in Austin, TX. Working on the Central Texas State Veterans Cemetery since its inception in 2002, the team has completed three expansion phases on this cemetery to-date. The Texas State Cemetery is unique in that it is both a historic state cemetery and a veterans cemetery. Located in near downtown Austin, the cemetery was founded in 1854 as a burial site for Edward Burleson, Vice-President of the Republic of Texas. The site was later expanded to accommodate Confederate burials and now includes the graves of many prominent Texans. With capacity for 7,500 interments, the goal of the master plan is to determine how best to utilize the remaining land (the cemetery is half full), control maintenance costs, and improve the cemetery’s overall sustainability.

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In January, RVi announced the acquisition of Tempe-based LVA Urban Design Studio.This past month we have been hard at work combining offices and getting to know our new colleagues.  

Over the next few months we will be introducing you to LVA's project portfolio via a monthly sidebar feature in our newsletter. But for now, we thought you might enjoy these fun facts about our Tempe team. You can also see all the members of our Tempe office on the People/Tempe page of our website.