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From the 27-story Chase Tower in the heart of downtown to the sprawling 65-acre CityGate project on the city's edge, much of the new development in Rochester has a common theme: mixed use.
The Chase Tower, historically an office building, will soon be converted into a mixture of offices, apartments and stores. CityGate will blend the Costco store with canalside apartments, shops, offices, restaurants and a hotel.
Likewise, the Sibley building, Midtown Plaza and College Town all combine shopping, restaurants, office and residential into their new spaces.
"It's going back to the way it was really historically," says Joseph Eddy, vice president of WinnDevelopment LLC, the Boston-based firm that is redeveloping the Sibley Building. "You go to Pompeii, you go to Rome, they had mixed use. It's not a new concept."
Single-use urban high-rises had a few decades of prominence, but now mixed use is coming back in most American cities, he says.
"It's a national trend," Eddy says. "It's the way people live today."
Indeed, Rochester seems to be a little bit behind in mixed-use development, says James Taylor, CEO of Taylor, The Builders, a general contracting firm in Penfield that worked on College Town.
"I think the trend has been pretty prevalent nationwide, and we're just catching up to it," Taylor says. "But it's definitely getting legs, and I see a lot of support and growth in this area in the future."
This is happening despite the fact that developers say mixed-use projects tend to be more challenging to design and build.
"It's really complicated," Eddy says. "There are a lot of things you have to figure out on security and on logistics, from things like trash and deliveries, and entryways and signage and wayfinding."
Adding residences to the Chase Tower triggers new codes, such as fresh air requirements and elevator issues, says Andrew Gallina, president of Gallina Development Corp., which is redeveloping the building.
"Unfortunately, they're kind of invisible improvements,"...