In order to allow more light to the street and to provide some relief from the height of these buildings at the street wall, the residential bulk on the upper floors has been pulled back from the street at both Williams and Snediker Avenues. 

This creates single-story commercial storefronts with second floor terraces above. These terraces, when activated by commercial food production and small scale urban gardening or other recreational uses of the tenants, add to the vibrancy of the streetscape. 

Our proposal sees the last site, a challenging site that is currently a “dead end” space at the intersection of the two train lines, as an opportunity for significant improvement in public infrastructure. 

Groundswell, a community-based arts non-profit in partnership with Covenant House, would propose a public art mural installation at the MTA Livonia L-Train station. The design team would also propose to DOT a paving change and speed bumps within 50’ of the intersection of Van Sinderen and Livonia, to slow down traffic and make this a pedestrian friendly area. 

The building at Site 9 is designed to work together with these improvements to make a new transit-oriented civic space that would serve as a punctuation point to the Livonia Avenue corridor and would help to truly revitalize the area.