Multifamily Monday (with a new attitude)
| In a first-of-its-kind Dallas Housing Authority project, BGO Architects was selected to design an alternative to the standard run-down housing projects often associated with low-income families. It's delivering drawings for a neighborhood with green spaces and public gathering spots that foster a sense of community. | |||
 | |||
We met with BGO Architect partner Walter Kilroy (on a construction site for another multifamily project the firm designed in Denton), who says what will make the Buckeye Trail Commons design successful is that neighborhood feeling. ?The residents won't feel like they're being housed but more like they are a part of their own community, in a place they can be proud of.? The design calls for 372k SF including more than 80k SF of community space (a teen center, community center, and Head Start campus). The remaining space is 232 units of rentable housing including apartments for seniors and single adults and townhouses for families. The project's expected to take 18 months. HUD has awarded DHA with a $20M grant to build it, but there's no project price yet. The site's been leveled, prepped, the abatement done, and it's shovel-ready from the dirt through the drawings, Walter tells us. As soon as the permits are secured, a contractor will be selected. | |||
 | |||
| He says the term ?projects? has horrible connotations, so when BGO read the RFP for the new housing development (on the site of the previous Turner Courts), the firm's leadership saw an opportunity to do something extraordinary. "Typically when you drive by these places, all we see are the negatives. When we drive by a neighborhood, we see the positives," he says. Walter has a passion for people facing challenges. He works with Catholic Charities and three other non-profits with goals of serving, most especially for the uncountable number of homeless children. | |||
