BROADBAND COMMUNITIES is the leading source of information on digital and broadband technologies for buildings and communities. Our editorial aims to accelerate the deployment of Fiber-To-The-Home and Fiber-To-The-Premises.
Issue link: https://bbcmag.epubxp.com/i/281446
14 | BROADBAND COMMUNITIES | www.broadbandcommunities.com | MARCH/APRIL 2014 FTTH DEPLOYMENT Babcock Ranch: A Smart, Connected And Integrated Greenfeld Community Kitson & Partners is developing a Manhattan-sized piece of a former cattle ranch into a new community designed for livability. Communications technology plays a major role. By Tom Hoban / Kitson & Partners and John Honker / Magellan Advisors W hat if you could build a new community from the ground up? Imagine that you were given a blank slate and told to create a place in which people would love to live. It would accommodate work, play and learning; foster a sense of community but provide space for solitary rambles; run on clean energy and support sustainable values; welcome families of various ages and diverse interests; and provide basic and not-so-basic amenities at a reasonable cost. How would you do it? Te Florida-based developer Kitson & Partners is in this enviable position. In 2006, it purchased the 91,000-acre Babcock Ranch in southwest Florida, then immediately sold 73,000 acres to the state of Florida in the largest land preservation purchase in the state's history. Te remaining 18,000 acres, an area larger than Manhattan, is slated to become the community of Babcock Ranch. More than half the community's land will be dedicated to natural greenways, parks and lakes. In the other half, 19,500 homes and 6 million square feet of retail, commercial, ofce and community space will provide space for 50,000 people to live and 20,000 people to work. Te project is fully entitled and permitted and funded entirely through an equity investment by the developer. Final engineering is in progress, and ground breaking is expected to begin later this year. In developing Babcock Ranch, Kitson & Partners aims to create a community that is not only smart but also dynamic, a community that will become ever smarter as time goes on. Tis is an unprecedented, collaborative efort to transform the way community development is carried out and to create the nation's most innovative, sustainable, 21st-century hometown. REINVENTING COMMUNITY EXPERIENCES Kitson & Partners has two great advantages. First, it has a rare opportunity to design a community BBC_Mar14.indd 14 3/14/14 2:45 PM