Distribution of infill and multi family developments

[memph]

So, lots of cities are seeing more multifamily developments, but where is it happening? The top 10 (based on census bureau building permits) metro areas for multifamily from 2008 to 2013 are:

New York: 129,984
DFW: 74,195
Houston: 64,450
Los Angeles: 60,864
Washington: 43,529
Seattle: 40,637
Austin: 36,001
Miami: 33,794
Denver: 27,289
Atlanta: 26,714

New York's not much of a surprise, and most people are aware of the fact that there's development throughout the city from skyscraper condos to small apartment infill in random residential areas in Queens and Brooklyn, as well as stuff in satellite towns and near railway stations.

Dallas... ok I know there's some downtown... but that's a lot of multi family. I feel like most of it is in the suburbs. Am I right?

Houston, not sure how much of the infill in Rice Military and the Heights that includes, since some of that could be considered SFH infill. My impression is Houston's getting more infill in the core than Dallas.

LA, I'm guessing a lot of it is infill, although I guess there would be some greenfield multifamily in Irvine. Is it mostly in the more urban nodes like Central LA, Santa Monica, Long Beach and Pasadena? Or is there some in random locations in South Central, San Fernando and San Gabriel Valleys, Garden Grove, or what not.

Washington you hear a lot about with D.C. and the TODs, but I'd be curious about the breakdown by county (and D.C. itself).

Seattle I think mhays has given decent descriptions of where infill is occuring. But how much is there in the suburbs/greenfield?

Austin I think someone (forget who/where) posted a map. It looked about 50% suburban, 50% inner city.

Miami, how much is in resort style locations along the beaches, and how much is more urban in places like Brickell, Edgewater, Miami Beach and Downtown, and how much is inland greenfield development? I guess there could also be redevelopment inland that's more urban too, like Dadeland.

Denver, honestly I don't know a whole lot about.

Atlanta seems to have a fair bit going on Downtown, Midtown, Buckhead, Perimeter Center and a few other spots inside The Perimeter.

[memph]

Now for the places I can tell you about myself. In Toronto, I'd say it's about 40/20/20/20.

40% Downtown, with development pretty much all over downtown, although the development is most intense in the Entertainment District right now.

20% Elsewhere in the inner city, with major areas being Yonge-Eglinton, Liberty Village, and brownfields around The Junction, but also a fair bit in Leslieville and various avenues.

20% In the outer city. Main areas are Humber Bay Shores, Etobicoke Centre, North York Centre and around Sheppard East subway stations. Scarborough Town Centre has a bit, but not enough to stand out since there's development scattered throughout North York, Scarborough and Etobicoke.

20% in the 905 (suburbs). Much of this is still infill, and urban. Mainly in Markham, Vaughan, Richmond Hill and Mississauga, especially around Square One, Yonge Street (Thornhill and Richmond Hill), Markham Centre and Vaughan Centre. There's some elsewhere too though. And some in other municipalities in York Region and also in Halton Region. Brampton and Durham Region are getting very little of their growth as multifamily or infill. Might be a bit more than 20%, this is just rough estimate.

Maps:
http://www.buzzbuzzhome.com/listview...lType_2/swm_1/
http://urbantoronto.ca/map/
The urbantoronto map is incomplete for the 905 suburbs, but still gives a decent rough idea of how they're distributed.

You can get a breakdown of where sales of new highrise (and lowrise) units are located by "county" here:
http://www.bildgta.ca/media_releases.asp


As for here in Waterloo Region, there's a map here:

http://www..com/forumdisplay.php?f=1

There's a substantial concentration in Downtown Kitchener, Downtown (called Uptown) Waterloo, and around the universities, but there's a decent bit spread out across more suburban areas. Still I'd say a solid majority is in those core areas (there's also 3 "downtowns" in Cambridge, but they're less active). They're actually missing some developments in the University Area, there's just so much it's hard for them to keep up, especially for the smaller 4-6 storey stuff.

[simms3_redux]

That gives a good indicator of which metros are building the most, but what are you classifying as infill multifamily? 2+? 4+? 10+?

Also, traditionally the Bay Area doesn't build much at all considering the historic NIMBYism throughout, but there's very little that does get built that isn't infill, as opposed to a lot of metros on that list which are still building out to a degree (i.e. in lower density or further out areas of <3,000 ppsm). Virtually everything in both SF/SJ and LA metros is going to be infill.

The other thing to keep in mind is what kind of multifamily infill gets built. Most multifamily infill in Atlanta, Houston, Dallas, and much of the Sunbelt is either garden style in the suburbs or hybrid style in the "inner" areas where you can classify it as infill relative to the area - so you get a lot of 150-450 unit developments with on-site parking either as surface or as concealed/wrapped garage, and most of these developments won't necessarily have a retail component and will be surrounded by SFR to a degree as these cities are just now building up in the age of the automobile.

Aside from towers going up in the CA/WA cities, most multifamily in these areas are in smaller 10-80 unit developments on small truly infill parcels surrounded by other multifamily. You actually don't get a lot of the large 300 unit AMLI mid-rises with wrapped garages, etc.

So I guess it's hard to make apples to apples comparisons. Standards for infill are totally based on existing city fabric and could be subjective.

[memph]

Originally Posted by simms3_redux

That gives a good indicator of which metros are building the most, but what are you classifying as infill multifamily? 2+? 4+? 10+?

Also, traditionally the Bay Area doesn't build much at all considering the historic NIMBYism throughout, but there's very little that does get built that isn't infill, as opposed to a lot of metros on that list which are still building out to a degree (i.e. in lower density or further out areas of <3,000 ppsm). Virtually everything in both SF/SJ and LA metros is going to be infill.

The other thing to keep in mind is what kind of multifamily infill gets built. Most multifamily infill in Atlanta, Houston, Dallas, and much of the Sunbelt is either garden style in the suburbs or hybrid style in the "inner" areas where you can classify it as infill relative to the area - so you get a lot of 150-450 unit developments with on-site parking either as surface or as concealed/wrapped garage, and most of these developments won't necessarily have a retail component and will be surrounded by SFR to a degree as these cities are just now building up in the age of the automobile.

Aside from towers going up in the CA/WA cities, most multifamily in these areas are in smaller 10-80 unit developments on small truly infill parcels surrounded by other multifamily. You actually don't get a lot of the large 300 unit AMLI mid-rises with wrapped garages, etc.

So I guess it's hard to make apples to apples comparisons. Standards for infill are totally based on existing city fabric and could be subjective.

I was counting 2+

I'm not so much interested in seeing total infill in one city vs the next, just whatever information posters have about any individual city and how infill and/or multifamily is distributed.

For the GTA, in the last 3 years (June 2011 to May 2014), the breakdown for sales of new highrise units has been:

Durham: 313 (0.7%)
Halton: 2,628 (6.1%)
Peel: 2,778 (6.4%)
York: 5,828 (13.5%)
Toronto: 31,536 (73.2%)
Total: 43,083

So I guess it was somewhat more than 20% of multifamily in the 905, but still, overwhelmingly in Toronto.

Not all multifamily is highrise of course, but in Toronto, most of it is. And essentially all highrises are infill. There is some lowrise infill, and also some lowrise apartments and townhouses that are greenfield. The 905 probably has a greater share of lowrise apartment development than highrise apartment development, though I feel like a fair bit is greenfield. Though certainly not all.

[mhays]

In the Seattle area, the vast majority has been urban infill. This includes "suburban" projects in nodes like Downtown Bellevue, Redmond, etc., where projects tend to go straight up from the lot lines and the parking is mostly underground. Greenfield development happens but it's much less.

BTW, permits aren't a very good guide, since every city handles them differently, and counts them differently, some don't get built, etc.

[WilliamTheArtist]

Was just in Dallas again last week for the week. I don't have any stats, just some observations. There are indeed lots of new multi-family developments going on in the core. But what I found most striking was this…

The weather while I was there was absolutely beautiful, quite cool for that time of year. BUT, there was hardly anyone out walking the sidewalks, even in the areas that appear to be ones that should be attractive for people to walk in. We drove around and walked around several parts of the city, and for all the growth, all the new high-rise buildings, all the new people moving into these areas, etc. this city, even the dense parts of the core with lots of population, is still essentially auto centric with hardly any pedestrians. You could go into stores and restaurants in the evening and they be packed with people, but go out on the sidewalk and hardly nada.

To me urban living isn't simply about tall buildings or lots of people living in an area, it's about a lifestyle. It's about the sense of community, lively energy and feel of walking down a bustling street . It's that interchange or "exchange" you get with yourself and others seeing all the interesting sights, great window displays, beautiful public art and architecture, the sounds of the city and smells of the different cafe's etc. Exploring new sights on foot with lots of people around is so much different than driving past sitting in a car in traffic and hardly seeing any other people while doing so.

I am learning that it is not about the "Distribution of infill or multi family developments." it's about the type of development. Whether auto centric or pedestrian friendly. And I am learning that parking garages, are not pedestrian friendly, whether they are hidden underground, or behind a "pedestrian friendly facade" of apartments and shops.

[dave8721]

In Miami's case virtually nothing was built between 2007-2012. What is being built now is largely downtown/adjacent neighborhood infill with a few suburban garden apartments here and there as well. There are a ton of towers going up in the beach cities (Miami Beach, Sunny Isles..etc) but the unit count is always very low in those (for example 50-story highrises with 50 total units priced at $15 million and up seem to be all the rage these days). 2014 has seen more of a revival in places like Dadeland with a bunch of 8 to 10 story 300-unit apartments wrapped around garages as simms3 described below and downtown Fort Lauderdale is seeing quite a boom as well.

[nei]

Originally Posted by memph

Not all multifamily is highrise of course, but in Toronto, most of it is. And essentially all highrises are infill. There is some lowrise infill, and also some lowrise apartments and townhouses that are greenfield. The 905 probably has a greater share of lowrise apartment development than highrise apartment development, though I feel like a fair bit is greenfield. Though certainly not all.

For the NYC metro (includes NY state suburbs but not NJ) 28% of recent construction is 7+ stories. 16% is 1 or 2 stories, which probably isn't multi-family, but the rest should be. From the American housing survey (2009 data).

http://www.census.gov/programs-surve...ea-tables.html

You can see the ratio of multifamily to single family here:

http://www.census.gov/construction/bps/msaannual.html

[dave8721]

Originally Posted by nei

For the NYC metro (includes NY state suburbs but not NJ) 28% of recent construction is 7+ stories. 16% is 1 or 2 stories, which probably isn't multi-family, but the rest should be. From the American housing survey (2009 data).

http://www.census.gov/programs-surve...ea-tables.html

You can see the ratio of multifamily to single family here:

http://www.census.gov/construction/bps/msaannual.html

% of 5+ units of total units for various metros (2013):
New York: 27346/39824 - 68.7%
Miami: 13364/19921 - 67.1%
Los Angeles: 16693/25198 - 66.2%
San Francisco: 7058/10922 - 64.6% (San Jose MSA is 74.2%)
Boston: 6506/12021 - 54.1%
Seattle: 10134/19517 - 51.9%
Washington DC: 10593/24033 - 44.1%
Dallas: 16244/37910 - 42.8%
Atlanta: 9266/24297 - 38.1%
Philadelphia: 4230/11217 - 37.7%
Chicago: 3844/11627 - 33.1%
Houston: 16649/51333 - 32.4%
Phoenix: 5449/18737 - 29.1%

[mhays]

As for "wrapping the building around a garage" we don't do that in the Seattle area. Maybe someone can find some examples but they're very rare. Parking is usually below-grade.

True, William, it's possible to be dense (or sorta dense like that area of Dallas) but still be dominated by cars, and have the weather problem and probably local culture conspire against busy sidewalks. Most buildings will have parking but in an urban-type city the ratio can be much lower. Start averaging 0.5 or 0.8 spaces per unit and that's both the cause and the result of a busier neighborhood.

[TexasCreed]

As far as Houston vs Dallas development most of Houston development is inside the city core (610 loop). Dallas multifamily are more likely built in the suburbs than Houston but Dallas suburbs, while still very auto dominated, are more dense than Houston suburbs. Dallas still does have a lot of Uptown and Victory park residential development.

Dallas suburbs are still generally well serviced by mass transit while Houston suburbs are more likely to not have buses or very few bus lines. Houston has and will have more light rail lines that better serve the residents closer to the core. Meanwhile Dallas light rail is much more built out but serves the suburbs and central business districts that have sprung up there.

[PLANSIT]

Originally Posted by dave8721

% of 5+ units of total units for various metros (2013):
New York: 27346/39824 - 68.7%
Miami: 13364/19921 - 67.1%
Los Angeles: 16693/25198 - 66.2%
San Francisco: 7058/10922 - 64.6% (San Jose MSA is 74.2%)
Boston: 6506/12021 - 54.1%
Seattle: 10134/19517 - 51.9%
Washington DC: 10593/24033 - 44.1%
Dallas: 16244/37910 - 42.8%
Atlanta: 9266/24297 - 38.1%
Philadelphia: 4230/11217 - 37.7%
Chicago: 3844/11627 - 33.1%
Houston: 16649/51333 - 32.4%
Phoenix: 5449/18737 - 29.1%

Denver: 8188/15475 - 52.9%

[memph]

Originally Posted by nei

For the NYC metro (includes NY state suburbs but not NJ) 28% of recent construction is 7+ stories. 16% is 1 or 2 stories, which probably isn't multi-family, but the rest should be. From the American housing survey (2009 data).

http://www.census.gov/programs-surve...ea-tables.html

You can see the ratio of multifamily to single family here:

http://www.census.gov/construction/bps/msaannual.html

I think mid rise gets lumped together with high rise for most Toronto stats, although I'm pretty sure high-rise development still outnumbers mid rise, except maybe in parts of the inner city outside downtown (height limits). I think low rise apartments get lumped with SFH/Semis/Towns but I'm not so sure anymore.

TexasCreed: Is that just your impression or do you have stats? There certainly seems to be more development inside 610 than in Dallas' core, but is it to a point where it's the majority of what's being built in the metro area?

And how well served are those Dallas suburbs really? Metro area transit mode share is actually higher in Houston (though very very low for both). Is Dallas' light rail useful for much beyond getting to Downtown? Dallas is pretty decentralized, so there's a lot in areas outside downtown.

[memph]

Inner SW Houston
2000 Housing Units: 168,388
2010 Housing Units: 177,059

West Loop
2000 Housing Units: 130,212
2010 Housing Units: 142,911

East Loop
2000 Housing Units: 84,525
2010 Housing Units: 81,529



Inner SW Houston I'm defining as South Main to Buffalo Bayou, 610 to Sam Houston.

I put the dividing line between East and West Loop at North Fwy in the North, and Eastex/South Fwy in the Downtown and the South.

12,000 units per decade for the West Loop is not that much though, compared to how much multi-family Houston built overall in the MSA. And it's not that 2010-2013 seems to have that much more multi-family development than 2000-2010. So has multi-family and infill shifted from more suburban areas to the loop? Is there any evidence of this shift?



BTW Mhays, is there another source you would suggest for getting a rough idea of how much MSAs are building?

[simms3_redux]

Well as I said before, it's also about quality of infill and existing urban fabric, which can't really be measured. What WilliamTheArtist describes goes for

Atlanta
Dallas
Houston
Phoenix
much of South FL (really outside of Miami Beach, which is urban and walkable)
Austin
Nashville
Charlotte
Orlando
Tampa
Raleigh
Jacksonville

Sure these cities are building up and building "infill" as in wrapped structured parking and multifamily in "infill" lots, but it's truly going to be a long time, maybe take a miracle if they result in a vibrant, urban city in the traditional sense. Parking ratios are still super duper high (1 spot per bedroom + visitor and then some) and while sidewalks are being built and some projects are "mixed-use" with retail below, it's still predominantly drive up.

I don't include LA and San Diego in the same category because while a lot of new "infill" developments there include high parking ratios, these cities' built up areas are much much denser and "small-scale" than the above, and so they are already a notch above on urbanity and I'd say anything that gets built, for the most part, in the metros of each would be considered "infill". It's going to be a lot more rare to build something in LA that is surrounded within a half mile by 90+% single family housing than it is in any of the Sunbelt sprawlers above. And LA's SFR is quite tightly packed, heavily mixed with in-laws and apartment structures of 5-20 units. This goes for much of the metro area outside of the gated communities and mountain view communities.

San Jose is like LA - developing much in the same fashion. It's known as a sprawler, but is consistently ~6,000+ ppsm already across most of the city and much higher on corridors. That means new apartments are always built to the curb with ground floor retail. Some examples I was going to post on that suburban metro walkability ranking thread:

When one talks about a new multifamily project getting built, miraculously, in suburban San Francisco, they are referring to:


Source

Which is catty corner to a Caltrain Station. Below is the parking lot it is going on in Silicon Valley:



And aerial of that area:




This is far far out East Bay in Contra Costa County - Concord (2nd or 3rd to last BART stop going East):



And what it looks like from satellite view:



Typical suburban Bay Area 80s/90s density (this is East Bay):



San Jose gets infill TOD for both Caltrain and its light rail at this transfer:



Not too far away:



Typical Peninsula towns:

Milbrae:



Area residential density:





San Carlos:



San Bruno



Burlingame:





Residential Density from that area:



San Mateo:



Both San Mateo and Burlingame from satellite:



Typical Silicon Valley:

Menlo Park



Los Altos



Mountain View





Palo Alto





Random






Typical East Bay towns:

San Leandro (Alameda County)





Walnut Creek (Contra Costa County)





Typical North Bay towns:

San Rafael





Santa Rosa (way up there)






What this built up density means, is that a big box grocer actually becomes a walk up and there is likely a train station nearby connecting the rest of the Bay Area, so even suburban sprawly Bay Area would be more walkable than much of the "infill" areas of newer Sunbelt cities:





I don't know necessarily how take all the subjective stuff into consideration. Most of what gets built in CA as a whole is TOD or at least "infill" in the sense that it is surrounded by existing 6,000+ppsm density. I don't think this necessarily compares to a Dallas, Houston, or Atlanta. The other consideration is that for LA and SF, there are BIG and DENSE suburban/secondary cities, as well. SF has Oakland, Berkeley, and downtown San Jose. LA has countless, just so many "downtowns" throughout, including Long Beach, Pasadena, Santa Monica, Glendale, etc etc. For the Bay Area, SF, Oakland, and Berkeley alone make up 30% of the MSA population.

[memph]

Well most of those Sunbelt cities are pretty auto centric for now, and it could take a long time for that to change. But how long does largely depend on how much infill there is and where it is located, which is a big part of why I started this thread. Houston and Dallas have huge street grids that could be urbanized. It's pretty low density and single family for now, but so was Los Angeles in 1950. However, LA, as well as Oakland, San Diego and San Jose have been intensifying their street grids for decades and are now more urban.

Even Phoenix, Tampa, Miami, Austin, Jacksonville have decent sized street grids that could be urbanized. Also there is variation in density. Phoenix and Miami have pretty dense SFH (similar to California). Tampa and Texas are a bit less so, but still not too too low density.

Atlanta, Raleigh and Charlotte have a pretty substantial population of young "create class" and white collar college educated residents. I think these are more likely to be supportive of urban revitalization and transit, so even though they are largely very low density culs-de-sac suburban, I don't think they're completely hopeless.

And I'd also add there's a big difference between building infill in a low density SFH neighbourhood 3 miles from downtown vs 30 miles from downtown. In the case of Houston and Atlanta, it's not just downtown but also Midtown and Uptown/Buckhead. The whole point of living in a dense neighbourhood is having amenities close by. In the core areas of sunbelt cities, sometimes all those amenities are close by in the more central neighbourhoods, there's just few people living there to take advantage of them (low density).

[dave8721]

Originally Posted by mhays

As for "wrapping the building around a garage" we don't do that in the Seattle area. Maybe someone can find some examples but they're very rare. Parking is usually below-grade.

True, William, it's possible to be dense (or sorta dense like that area of Dallas) but still be dominated by cars, and have the weather problem and probably local culture conspire against busy sidewalks. Most buildings will have parking but in an urban-type city the ratio can be much lower. Start averaging 0.5 or 0.8 spaces per unit and that's both the cause and the result of a busier neighborhood.

Here is an example from South Miami (across the street from UM). Retail on the ground floor, apartments wrap around the exterior and parking is in the interior. Below ground parking in Miami would cost more than the project itself so this is actually the best solution. Pretty typical suburban apartments these days in Miami-Dade where land is getting too rare to waste on apartment surface lots. Wish some of the dowtown towers would hide their parking as well.


Another one in the Dadeland area:

[mhays]

Yes, it's a big price advantage, depending on soils, water, land costs, etc. But it reduces the apparently density substantially, vs. having another row of units circling the interior space for example.

[TexasCreed]

Originally Posted by memph

I think mid rise gets lumped together with high rise for most Toronto stats, although I'm pretty sure high-rise development still outnumbers mid rise, except maybe in parts of the inner city outside downtown (height limits). I think low rise apartments get lumped with SFH/Semis/Towns but I'm not so sure anymore.

TexasCreed: Is that just your impression or do you have stats? There certainly seems to be more development inside 610 than in Dallas' core, but is it to a point where it's the majority of what's being built in the metro area?

And how well served are those Dallas suburbs really? Metro area transit mode share is actually higher in Houston (though very very low for both). Is Dallas' light rail useful for much beyond getting to Downtown? Dallas is pretty decentralized, so there's a lot in areas outside downtown.

Impressions mostly but the following gives a good picture of where things are being built.

http://devmap.io/cities/houston/developments

On the subject of multifamily dwellings I can say with some certainty that most of them are being built within the loop or close to it. Single family housing though still pulls most development outside of central Houston. Especially if you include the suburban cities such as Spring, Katy and Sugar Land. There is one bright spot though and that's the current construction and proposals for dwelling in the downtown CBD. Over 2,000 units are suppose to be under construction in the next couple of years and hopefully that is just the start.

Dallas DART light runs not only through Dallas suburbs but Richardson, Plano, Rowlett, Garland + 5 other cities going through most cities "downtown". The most popular line, Red Line, basically has 10 - 20 story towers along the majority of it's route which can also be considered destinations. In comparison you have Greenspoint which is within the Houston city limits. There you have 16 million sq ft of office space and 10,000s of workers yet it is serviced by all of 3 bus lines. Just different types of regional priorities.

[pdxtex]

just cruising around portland, id say were having a mini apartment boom. lloyd center, division street, broadway, north pearl district are all seeing tons of new projects. owner occupied projects seems to be more mostly that three story townhouse infill type stuff. im seeing lots of that going up right now also. keep an eye on the southern end of the SE industrial area as OMSI eyes developing some of its property. exciting times to be a portland urbanist......