Houston’s CityCentre project, profiled in the new report Shifting Suburbs, created a dense new urban place at the confluence of major highways.

Shifting Suburbs: Reinventing for Infrastructure for Compact Development,  showcases CityCentre, a walkable, mixed-use hub built on an obsolete mall outside of Houston, Texas.

The project was presented by Jonathan Brinsden, COO and executive vice president of Midway Companies, at a ULI forum in Minneapolis in 2011.

At the forum, Brinsden emphasized the value and synergies created by mixed-use development and how the CityCentre capitalized on shifting demographics and the consumer experience. By providing access to public space and facilitating daily relationships between users and the mixed-use development at CityCentre, Midway created a new and successful town center that functions around the clock and throughout the year.

CityCentre targets two significant demographic bubbles: empty nesters and young professionals. The development accommodates these two groups through careful streetscape design, diverse public programming, and amenities like a fitness center and cinema restaurant. As the report describes:

CityCentre’s compact form and pedestrian emphasis set it apart from other developments in Houston. But ironically, the development was easy to entitle— Houston’s lack of a zoning code means that planning and developing a site like CityCentre are much simpler than they might be in other municipalities.

ULI Houston presented CityCentre with a 2012 Award of Distinction, noting how the project opened as a unified development with special care given to streetscape design and public space.

Read more on pages 40-42 of Shifting Suburbs