Space Considerations

Brad Cozza wants to live where he works. An investment real estate consultant with Keller Williams Realty, Cozza specializes in downtown Fort Myers. He found the perfect solution at The Cypress Club, a downtown condominium development that will offer both traditional residences and live/work lofts, where residents can also conduct their business.

Cozza plans on using the downstairs space as a sales center and living upstairs, on the mezzanine level.

"There is endless possibility with these spaces," he says. "I'll be living in a luxurious setting and also have the luxury of having my office downstairs. I'd say that the only drawback of the live/work spaces is that there are not many of them per project."

After urban planner Andrés Duany brought the concept of New Urbanism to Southwest Florida, locals were all talking about mixed use. What could be more fun, more desirable, than a downtown residence above a small business? Need a quick bite to eat, fashionable garb or a good movie? Run downstairs!

Since then, the concept has slowly been put into practice as residences take shape near offices, retail space and entertainment districts, and as businesses start to arise in historically residential areas. And some developers-such as The Cypress Club's BAP Development and Newleaf-are taking it a step further by offering live/work units, which let people work where they live and live where they work.

The live/work concept is not new (and not to be confused with the home office). Think about previous generations, when families would live in flats above their market, barber shop or other mom-and-pop business. And for decades, artists and writers-anyone with a creative bent and a thin wallet-have turned low-rent warehouse space into both studio and living quarters.

Over time, the dwellings have become trendy and desirable. In metropolitan areas such as San Francisco, Chicago and New York, live/work apartments are considered indispensable.

In Naples, Antaramian Development was the first company to respond to Duany's vision with Colony Court Building, a 28,000-square-foot building on Fifth Avenue South featuring upper-floor residences. Others joined in and Fifth Avenue was reborn.

"Mixed use is extraordinarily popular," says Pam Watson, real estate consultant with Prudential Florida WCI Realty. "Naples used to be a sand-between-your-toes kind of place, all about the beach and healthy lifestyles. We've added a new component with something for urban dwellers coming out of large metropolitan areas. They like to be in the thick of it, and who can blame them?"

In Fort Myers, city officials couldn't be happier to see more mixed-use projects taking shape.

"We may be the only city in the county with our arms around live/work at the moment," says Fort Myers councilman and commercial realtor Randall Henderson. "We are permitting it, and we are encouraging it. Live/work goes back to the concept that Andrés Duany helped us to visualize, and you're going to be seeing a lot of this in the future."

Downtown revitalization has hinged largely on

riverfront revival, and most of the new towers are sprouting along the Caloosahatchee, with "liner buildings" of retail shops or townhouses to mask the parking decks. BAP Development and Newleaf are masking the parking decks at The Cypress Club with live/work units, which welcome an eclectic blend of lifestyles and create more than a row of townhouses.

"My partner, BAP Development, is a seasoned high-rise developer and has completed many successful mixed-use projects in the Miami area," says Brian Fenster, principal of Newleaf. "Part of re-urbanization is eliminating the constant presence of parking structures by activating the streetscape with something more lively. In our estimation, the perfect solution would be structures that blend different types of mixed use, which in this case turned out to be live/work."

When complete, the luxury 32-story tower will offer 292 residences and 14 live/work lofts. The lofts, featuring first-floor space with ceilings that soar two levels, can be used for office or retail space. They also feature open loft/mezzanine levels that can serve as residential space, so the units can be used as strictly residential, with living and dining space on the first floor. The kitchen space, which can be easily converted to a service bar in a unit used for business, is to the rear of the first floor, underneath the mezzanine. Units are small, about 1,000 square feet, and contain front and rear doors.

Buyers embrace live/work space for several reasons. In a setting such as The Cypress Club, the price is a bargain compared with luxury residences upstairs that sell for up to $4 million. First offered for less than $400,000, the live/work lofts have appreciated considerably, pre-construction. The project is scheduled to begin in 2006 with completion in 2008. Because the live/work lofts are located on the ground floor around the parking level, there are relatively few available.

"Live/work is a very small percentage of the market," explains Frank D'Alessandro, commercial realtor. "You get the same effect when you put commercial with housing in the same development where a person might not live over their store or business but close by. What we are hearing over and over again is that smart growth is all about trying to bring workers closer to their jobs. They might want to live and work and go to a restaurant and a grocery store all in the same vicinity, but not everyone wants to be attached to their business."

Not all of the buyers of The Cypress Club's live/work lofts will live in them. Artist and owner of DiGiorgio Metal Design, James DiGiorgio plans to use his as a showroom for metal furniture and fixtures he makes at his nearby downtown studio.

"The attraction for me is the great location and the fact that it's commercial and residential," he says. "My clients can use the parking and other amenities that come with the entire project."

So far, he's happy with his investment. "This is a dream," DiGiorgio reports. "I paid $341,000, and now they're selling for $650,000."

"I wish that I had more to sell," says Fenster. "I'm certain that any future projects that we have in this market are going to be very heavily weighted with this flexible-commercial live/work space."

Another downtown Fort Myers project incorporating the concept, Cameratta Properties' First Street Village, is proposed as a mixed-use development of low-rise condominiums with 348 residences, 40,000 square feet of office space and nearly 100,000 square feet of retail space, including a Publix. The pedestrian-friendly development sits on the site of the former Edison-Ford Square shopping center. First Street Village, where sales were slated to begin in January, plans to offer 10 live/work units.

Initial drawings of the First Street Village live/work units feature larger units, with approximately 1,300 square feet downstairs and 1,300 square feet upstairs with separate entrances on each level.

"The spaces will have retail or offices downstairs and an internal stairway allowing the owner to walk to a residential unit above," says Bob Pekol, director of sales with VIP Realty. "You can only do it on the first floor, and there is only so much first-floor area where they fit."

Charlotte County has a tradition of encouraging mixed use in its commercial districts. Zoning regulations permit anyone building a showroom, office or store to also build a unit above, which can

be residential.

"We have always allowed it, but there were few folks taking advantage of it," says Jorge Perez, of the Charlotte County Planning Department. "Now that land values have gone up, we're seeing more interest. The only requirement if you are going to mix commercial and residential is that the residential has to be on a separate level."

A new zoning ordinance for the Charlotte Harbor Community Redevelopment Agency area actually provides incentives for mixed use, according to Perez. Builders can exceed the current height limit of 35 feet and build to a maximum of 90 feet if they incorporate mixed use and public-access areas.

The City of Punta Gorda also welcomes live/work projects, although none has been proposed. As of April 2005, all of Punta Gorda's downtown is zoned for mixed use.

"We have regulations here that would limit high-rises, but not live/work space," says Mitchell Austin, urban planner for Punta Gorda Community Development. "You can maximize your value by having an office or retail with residential space above that."

Before moving to Florida, Austin watched the construction in 2001 and 2002 of several high-rise condominium projects in Atlanta that included live/work spaces consisting of 900 square feet of commercial space on the first floor with 700 to 900 square feet of living space above.

"A lot of communities are becoming more open to it," he says. "We like to call it New Traditionalism because you see this kind of development in older communities. For the last 20 years of their lives, my grandparents lived in an apartment over a store in a 50-year-old building in rural Georgia."

Ron Oskey, principal of Charlotte Development Corp., considered live/work while designing The City Marketplace, a 520,000-square-foot mixed-use project being built on the site of the old Punta Gorda Mall in downtown Punta Gorda. The project features 68,000 square feet of retail, 80,000 square feet of office, 150 condominium residences and a 130-room boutique hotel.