City West

Jeff Raser helped a nationwide leading developer of low-income housing, The Community Builders, Inc., re-create a distressed neighborhood.

City West is a traditional neighborhood development (TND) on the sites of two former public housing projects. This 48 acre site contains 972 dwelling units (senior housing, apartments and rowhouses) and approximately 10,000 sf of commercial space. The neighborhood is within a 15 minute walk of downtown Cincinnati.

In addition to spearheading the planning and entitlement effort, the Raser-led design team created designs for an array of building types to that would define an entire neighborhood. Our intent was to create a neighborhood that fit the historic Italianate context of Cincinnati. It was important that each resident identify strongly with his or her own home and the public-private space immediately outside that home. We took great care to assure that each family has its own entry, stoop, mailbox and street address. We designed a variety of façades to give a sense of human scale and individuality to the units using a kit-of-parts which included bay windows, dormers, various door types and window heads, porches, brackets, etc. This also gives rhythm and texture to the street corridor.

We positioned mixed-use buildings along the wider Linn Street commercial corridor and designed those buildings with ample storefronts and human-scaled facades. We created a boulevard, linking existing parks at both the north and south ends of the neighborhood and shaped an urban crescent park at the boulevard's mid-point which is now the neighborhood's center.

City West won a 2004 Charter Award from the Congress for a New Urbanism and a 2004 National AIA Community by Design award.