DPZ Summer Newsletter 2025

On May 19th, DPZ's Master Plan 2050 was unanimously approved at the City Commission meeting in Royal Oak, MI.

Royal Oak is an inner ring suburb of Detroit that abuts Birmingham, a city to the north where DPZ produced a 1994 Downtown Plan and a 2022 Master Plan. Together both plans aim to reinforce traditional urban patterns and neighborhoods and revitalize commercial districts, linked by parks and walkable streets.

Royal Oak expands upon this structure with new downtown-like districts and a strong focus on pedestrian and bicycle connections.

A walkable and bikeable Royal Oak, supported by more neighborhood main streets and urban districts, advances the City's Climate Action Plan through increased mode share and its Aging In Place Plan with more diverse housing opportunities.

Read more about the plan here.

On June 3rd, Florida's Orange County Commission officially adopted Vision 2050, a forward-looking growth management plan, alongside the Orange Code—the County's first major zoning overhaul since 1957.

What began as a focused effort to develop new form-based zoning regulations evolved into an eight-year, county-wide initiative co-led by DPZ in collaboration with Kimley-Horn, and the Orange County Planning Department. As the work progressed, additional county departments were brought into the process.

On June 25th, the Palmetto Bay Village Council approved the agreement that will enable the redevelopment of the former Burger King World Headquarters at 17777 Old Cutler Road in this southern suburb of Miami.

In collaboration with Goddard Investment Group and Phillips Partnership architects, DPZ helped develop a master plan integrating residential, retail, and entertainment uses into the existing 1980s office park. Despite neighborhood resistance and legal disputes with

Master planned in 2022, Ivanhoe Village is envisioned as an 800-acre new urban center approximately 50 miles northwest of Chicago. Recently featured in the Chicago Tribune, this village will serve as the heart of a suburban community undergoing expansion.

The pedestrian-friendly plan shall encompass 2.2 million square feet of commercial and industrial space, recreational amenities, retail and services.

Uniquely, it is being developed on the oldest continuously held farmstead in the United States—owned by the same family for generations, who are committed to creating a legacy project that will serve their community for generations to come.

This year's CNU marked a rewarding homecoming of sorts for DPZ. For the second time, the City of Providence,RI, hosted the annual new urbanist conference. The promise of DPZ's Downcity Providence 1991 and 2003 master plans were starting to yield tangible results back in 2006 at CNU14. By 2025, these seeds had born fruit.

In between the thought-provoking sessions and informative tours around the New England region, congress attendees were able to enjoy a lively downtown thriving with locally-owned restaurants, theaters, shops, public art, green spaces, and newly-converted housing units populated by college students, families, and relocated retirees.

To learn more about DPZ at CNU 33 check out our Pulse Post here.

In late May, Andrés and Lizz were honored guests in Stuart, FL. for the Saving Stuart: Then & Now. This Stuart Main Street event was part of the yearlong Martin County 100th Anniversary celebration.

The city holds a special place in DPZ history, as it was DPZ's first downtown master plan client. Andrés was invited as the keynote speaker with several other locals in a series of panels and presentations. With 150+ attendees, many stories were shared by individuals whose passion for the town both predated and followed DPZ's 1988 intervention.

This article is by Blake Fontenay, a veteran Florida journalist who has written a book on Stuart. It describes

The annual "Kentlands Under the Lights" sponsored by the Kentlands Community foundation on June 14th welcomed residents and visitors to gather and share a communal dinner. Based on a small town Italian tradition, this event has become a neighborhood favorite.

Hundreds of people were there, and the pictures do not do the event justice, as it's impossible to show the crowds without a drone! But these images give you a flavor.

Read more about the treasured annual tradition here.

On June 10th, 2025, Marina Khoury was in Montreal for the Vivre-en-Ville annual conference. The theme was "Territorial Sobriety" in light of the housing shortages, urban sprawl, "not in my backyard," climate change, and other crises confronting Québec.

Speakers shared a myriad of positive and inclusive approaches to building stronger, more resilient communities. Marina showcased sprawl repair as an incremental, walkable, design-driven suburban transformation tool.

Read more about the event here.

Following CNU33, Matt Lambert and Camille Annette Cortes participated in the biennial Managed Retreat conference, MR25, at Columbia University in NYC alongside Meghan Sullivan, Scott Preston, Mary Ann Grena Manley, Kayla Walsh, Sydney Fishman, and Kenneth "Kip" Santos.

Their climate-focused non-profit, PLACE Initiative, was featured during the event's keynote, by Jesse Keenan, for its forward-thinking focus on the long-term implications of climate migration. PLACE joined Adaptation Leader and Washington Seagram's University in a session focused on the state of research into reviving places.

In this session, Matt connected the dots between migration and growth planning, and shared insights into urban form, incremental change, and considerations around fiscal, social, and political capital constraints. Their work will be featured in Jesse Keenan's forthcoming book North, and was recently featured in Hillary Brown's book, Revitalize | Resettle: How Main Street USA Can Offer New Beginnings For America's Climate-Displaced, and her interview in Common Edge.

Learn more about the event here.

DPZ was pleased to participate in the exhibition accompanying the "Beauty and the Built Landscape" international congress this summer in Viterbo, Italy. The venue was the medieval hall of the Palazzo dei Papi. Over 20 architecture and urban design firms from around the world were invited to show projects. The focus of the submissions was the concept of beauty being pursued via design, but also with planning tools like form-based codes, guidelines, pattern books, and other regulations and innovative techniques.

Working in our Portland office, Jonathan Konkol, AICP, is an urban designer with over 20 years of experience in planning, architecture, and real estate economics. He actively participates in local planning advocacy and chairs the Built Environment Committee at the City Club of Portland where he sits on the board of governors.

In recognition for their career-long commitment to the design of Florida communities, the Florida Chapter of the American Institute of Architects has conferred on Andres and Lizz their Medal of Honor for Design.

The medal recognizes Florida architects who have "distinguished themselves, by the high quality and originality of one's work, advancing the value and public awareness of good architecture over an extended period of time, and by one's leadership, provided inspiration to colleagues and others." This is the highest award for design that AIA Florida can bestow on one of its members.

Watch the official video here.

As mentioned earlier in this newsletter, a highlight of CNU33 for DPZ was the Charter Awards. The Downcity Providence project was honored with the inaugural Generational Project Award.

It was presented in concert with the inaugural Sisyphus Implementation Medal to Buff Chace to honor his persistence in championing the revitalization of Downcity.

The two awards recognized the village of individuals whose constant commitment to reviving this downtown has been steadfast for nearly 40 years, and is still going strong.

Our Seafront Residences project has been honored with another prize: the prestigious Silver Award for Best Environmental Conservation at the Federation Internationale des Administrateurs de Bien-Conseils Immobiliers (FIABCI).The award reflects Aboitiz Land's unwavering commitment to master planned communities dedicated to sustainability.

The achievement acknowledges the SEALANDER Project, which champions initiatives such as the conservation hatchery for the endangered pawikan sea turtles. The hatchery and conservation strategies were integrated in the overall master plan from the outset.

Before each annual Congress, the CNU connects local municipalities and neighborhood groups in the host region with pro bono expertise from prominent urban design firms to plan improvements for local communities.

This year, DPZ organized a team with extensive experience in urban revitalizations, to propose a Legacy Project redevelopment for 40 acres of surface parking in Providence's Hospital District. Collaborating with Cornish Associates, Urban3, Zimmerman/Volk & Associates, and

Rob Steuteville, editor of the CNU Public Square blog, reveals in a recent post that he was a Cape Cod resident in the early 1980s and frequented the New Seabury Shopping Center that is today Mashpee Commons. He notes that Mashpee is the lone community on the Cape without a historic, mixed-use core.

The two leading counties in Northwest Arkansas, Washington and Benton, continue their collaboration on the regional planning initiative that has engaged DPZ as its guide. The client is the NWA Council, a coalition of community and business leaders.

In partnership with PlaceMakers, Crafton Tull, Urban3, and ZVA, DPZ will develop a Regional Growth Strategy that will comprehensively evaluate the multifaceted implications of growth, assess the current state of NWA communities,

A commercial real estate broker credits the 2000 DPZ master plan for the renaissance of Downtown Sarasota, and points to the lucky timing that helped get the area through the great recession.

As the summer season draws many to coastal vacations, an Atlanta real estate and lifestyle publication corroborates what many Atlantans have long recognized.

In another observational piece on Seaside, J. David Chapman, a professor of real estate at The University of Central Oklahoma, writes about the urban design lessons that he wishes more vacationers internalized and took home with them from their time spent along 30-A.

"Seaside is a reminder that these ideas aren't just theoretical or nostalgic. They're real. They're doable. And they work.", he points out. It is about wanting to make those suburban places we inhabit more focused on "walkability, mixed-use development, and human-scaled design."

Read the full piece here.

Part of the CNU Latino CNU 33 session included this video of Andrés sharing his thoughts on the Lessons from Latin America. As he sees it, Latin America must be viewed broadly as a region that includes not only Central and South America but also the entire Caribbean and Gulf Basin, and even the southwest US.

The great cities of this large area embody the legacy of the civilizations of the Mediterranean and North Africa that colonized them. They are an extension of the built legacies of the Roman and Middle Eastern Empires.

Among the imports brought to the Americas were the courtyard house typology and masonry construction, two traditions that have much to teach modern communities aspiring to build sustainable and secure density.

Watch the video here.

In a recent "On the Park Bench" talk moderated by Rob Steuteville, Andrés and Fernando Pages engaged in a thoughtful exchange on the lessons new urbanists can glean from The Villages, a master-planned, age-restricted community in Florida.

Together, they highlighted the programmatic innovations that have made this the top-selling community in the US. While acknowledging the many design shortcomings of the Villages, they urge CNUers to look past the aesthetics and appreciate what it does well.

Watch the full interview here.