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Defunct mall to become community park Instead of demolishing an old, unused mall, one community is hoping to repurpose it into a spectacular mixed-use town center. By Liisa Andreassen Correspondent
“For us, the challenge was how do we bring to the community the town center they’ve wanted for de- cades, revitalize retail at this location, but also meet their desire for a model for sustainable growth and a desire for open space,” Moulds says. “The 30-acre com- munity park and nature reserve was what they’ve al- ways wanted.” “LEEDING”THEWAY. Enter Architect Rafael Vinoly and Olin Landscape Architects , who have unveiled designs for the world’s largest green roof. This community park in the sky is sandwiched between Apple’s Infinite Loop headquarters and the spaceship-like Apple Campus 2. This ambitious project, to be called the Hills at Vallco, will transform the failed shopping mall into a sustain- able and walkable LEED Platinum mixed-use commu- nity. Without a doubt, the green roof is the project’s crown jewel, an unprecedented engineering feat that’s at least twice as big as anything attempted before. The elevated community park will include 3.8 miles of walking and jogging trails along rolling hills, orchards, vineyards, meadows, organic gardens, children’s play areas, and a sanctuary for native fauna and flora. The sustainable green roof will help the Hills at Vallco achieve LEED Platinum certification by growing na-
C alifornia is about the get the world’s largest green roof. The Vallco Shopping Mall, in the heart of suburban Silicon Valley, is a classic example of a dy- ing shopping center. So, developers are starting over. The mall and the sprawling adjacent parking lot could be turned into a new, walkable neighborhood, topped with the largest green roof in the world. “It’s not easy to be a shopping mall these days,” says Reed Moulds, managing director at Sand Hill , the de- veloper behind the $3 billion redesign. “We’ve done some research, and we haven’t found a single shop- ping mall that’s started construction since 2006. This is clearly a dying model that’s on display at Vallco.” After months of community meetings, the developers realized they had to take a completely different ap- proach to the mall – not just knock it down and add new stores. The new design, if it’s approved by the city of Cupertino later this year, will have a downtown-like street grid with town squares for farmers’ markets and will be lined with stores, offices, and hundreds of apartments. All of this will be wrapped inside a 30-acre park with running trails, vineyards, orchards, and gardens.
THE ZWEIG LETTER JANUAR
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