KELLY MACY
Armed Forces Retirement Home, Washington, D.C. Mixed-Use Redevelopment RFP
The American Musical and Dramatic Academy (AMDA) is one of the country's most significant performing arts colleges, and the LA campus and its diverse student body have energized the growth and vitality of Hollywood. Our plan to design and build AMDA a new campus – with state-of-the-art classrooms, studios, performance spaces, production facilities, and places for students to gather – would strike a balance between functionality and creativity with an iconic new Hollywood landmark and a safe, sustainable, equitable and healthy space for students and faculty to engage.
While offering a clear guiding vision called “The Glade”, our proposal for the North Berkeley BART Station RFQ was intended as a first step in engaging with the community, BART, and the City of Berkeley. Flexible in nature, our concept allowed for greater density than presented if the process dictated. The opportunity to create a mixed-income, innovative multi-modal transit village in the heart of North Berkeley inspired us to bring together a team of local firms deeply committed to listening and responding with flexibility and creativity.
The opportunity is to create a vibrant, animated neighborhood that is the perfect marriage between cultural, commercial, and residential uses, delivering a signature social district on par with other truly global cities that draw people regionally, nationally, and internationally. The sum of our vision is an extended-hour transit center that is equal parts regional economic engine and its own identifiable neighborhood; a truly multi-modal destination that unites adjacent neighborhoods and serves as the Front Door to the City.
According to Merriam-Webster, the definition of “elevate” is “to lift up or make higher; raise,” “to improve morally, intellectually, or culturally,” and “to raise the spirits of; elate.” LAX elevates thousands of people every day in ways that are both literal and figurative. Inspired by this uplifting mission, we created a vision for an ambitious and transformational campus at LAX Northside called ELEVATE LA, a health and wellness-oriented campus that aimed to lift the lives and spirits of all who visit, play and work there while creating a vibrant and productive revenue generator for LAWA.
The United Food and Commercial Workers, Local 770 Headquarters RFQ was a development opportunity in Koreatown to provide highly-desirable workforce, affordable and market-rate housing, and, if desired, a modern new headquarters for the UFCW. Keenly aware that a project of this magnitude in the heart of Koreatown will not be without its complexities – labor contracts, community scrutiny, structural challenges, and incorporating the Metro parcel among them – we presented a roadmap to steward the project to completion.
Our team successfully pursued multiple opportunities nationwide, becoming a preferred developer for the YMCA non-profit organization. Our distinctive concept of comprehensive wellness communities resonated with the YMCA community, as it was deeply anchored in the local cultural fabric to ensure financial viability and cultural enrichment.