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UPTOWN, from page 3

WANT MORE? Check out the November 15th edition of TZL (1128) for more information on the Razorback Regional Greenway.

Hudson is confident the complex will be a hit with the pub- lic, and if that’s the case, look for more to be built. “Uptown is a really exciting project for us because hous- ing is the missing piece in that neighborhood,” Hudson says. “When we look at potential sites, we look for walk- able neighborhoods and access to trails, green-space, and centers of employment – Uptown has it all. We see a large demand for modern, walkable apartments in this area, and we’ll continue to pursue those opportunities.” The Uptown center was designed by Modus Studio of Fay- etteville, a leading firm inmodern architecture. The building uses typical materials – brick, stucco, fiber cement board, cedar, and steel. The trick, however, says Modus principal Chris Baribeau, is to develop creative concepts that ulti- mately become unique places and spaces in which people want to live. Uptown, with one and two-bedroom units ranging from 408 to 1,262 square feet, does just that. “Uptown will bring a truly crisp modern aesthetic with in- credible community spaces and amenities carved in and around the buildings,” Baribeau says. “The mixed-use aspect will give the larger Northwest Arkansas community the op- portunity to shop, play, and eat within the development, whether it’s accessed via trail or road.” The template for the Uptown project is Eco Modern Flats, another Fayetteville project designed by Modus and de- veloped by Specialized Real Estate Group. A renovated 96- unit student housing complex, Eco Modern Flats is consid- ered the greenest apartment development in Arkansas, and was recognized by the Urban Land Institute, the U.S. Green

Council, the National Apartment Association, and won the 2012 LEED for Homes Award for Outstanding Multifamily Project. Specialized Real Estate Group is an adherent to the 21 rec- ommendations of the Urban Land Institute’s Building Healthy Places campaign, which includes physical activity, healthy food and drinking water, healthy environments, and social well-being. The initiative encompasses land uses, streetscapes, play spaces, on-site gardening, food markets, ventilation and airflow, and pet-friendly policies, among others elements. Like Eco Modern Flats, Uptown also follows the Indoor Air Quality Pledge, which encompasses non-toxic interior paint, non-toxic building materials, non-toxic cleaning ma- terials, quarterly air filter replacements, gentle pest man- agement, and non-smoking communities. Both Modus and Specialized learned a lot from EcoModern Flats, and poured that knowledge into Uptown. “In many ways, Eco Modern Flats is our flagship, and we are applying many of those lessons learned to the Uptown proj- ect,” Hudson says. “With Eco, we realized how the built en- vironment could shape human health.” Creating scaled urban spaces where tenants and consumers can overlap is challenging, Baribeau says, and Uptown re- quires tremendous hardscape, landscape, and building fin- ishes. But once it’s done, the effort would have been worth it. When people enter the building, “they will feel as if they have been transported to a high-end retail center in another sophisticated, larger city,” Baribeau says. “However, visitors will be connected to the natural beauty of Northwest Ar- kansas through familiar views of the city of Fayetteville.”

THE ZWEIG LETTER NOVEMBER 30, 2015, ISSUE 1129

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