Perched on the edge of San Francisco Bay, the Hunters Point Shipyard was an important naval manufacturing center for the WWI and WWII war efforts. Now abandoned, the shipyard, along with Candlestick Point, will be combined into a new mixed use residential, retail and light industry development — the largest in San Francisco since WWII. Thomas Balsley Associates collaborated with urban planners IBI Group in developing an innovative urban plan whose parks and open spaces exploit the site’s extraordinarily diverse waterfront and views as well as its rich maritime heritage.
The plan combines the proposed Forty-Niners football stadium within the new mixed-use community with a sustainable system of smart streets, bikeways and diverse parks, including California’s first urban state park, redesigned to function as the front lawn to San Francisco’s Bayview and Hunters Point Community.
A lively network of neighborhood parks, plazas, linear boulevard parks, roof deck recreation areas, and a continuous waterfront park trail and bikeway system will knit the spaces together and connect the upland community to its new shipyard neighbors and the extraordinary bay environment. The state park’s grassland and natural shoreline has been retooled into a landscape of the highest standards of environmental and social sustainability. The open space system of this new community has helped define its urban form and character as well as the quality of life and natural systems that we have come to expect of our built environment.
Downtown Flushing Framework
The development framework for Downtown Flushing seizes on the unique and significant attributes of the area and connects them into a cohesive whole, implementing improvements to the public realm and incentivizing high-quality private development. The framework builds upon the rich history and cultural diversity of Downtown Flushing; the study area currently e...
Dubai Hills Boulevard and Public Realm
Envisioned as a “Garden Oasis” strategically situated where city meets desert, Dubai Hills is a vibrant yet elegant mixed-use community for 21st-century living. The key public realm element of this massive 1,000-hectare development is a 5.6-kilometer urban boulevard lined with shops, residences, and offices – the district’s central spine. For Phase 1, SWA/Bals...
Gateway Mall Master Plan
The Gateway Mall runs 18 blocks through the center of downtown St. Louis, terminating at the famous Eero Saarinen Arch, and provides a green spine in which the downtown’s workers, residents, and visitors can relax and celebrate urban living.
The mall never fully lived up to the potential envisioned by the civic leaders at the time of its inception. Thom...
Flushing Commons
This ten-acre mixed-use development with parks, plazas, and retail will become the center of social and retail activity in downtown Flushing. Driven mostly by an influx of immigrants from East Asia, Flushing is one of the fastest-growing and most diverse neighborhoods in the US. Abuzz with shopping and socializing at all hours of the day and evening, its stree...