Sep 30 2015
Today, at the 2015 Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) Annual Meeting, Delos®, the pioneer of Wellness Real Estate™, and Strategic Property Partners announced a partnership to create the world’s first WELL Certified™ city district in Tampa, Florida.
Through this project, Delos, Strategic Property Partners and the City of Tampa will not only create a roadmap for how cities worldwide can be designed and developed to support public health, they will also demonstrate the concept on a $2 billion, 40-acre urban mixed-use development project. Delos Founder and CEO Paul Scialla, who was joined on stage by Robbie Fritz of Cascade Investment, Jeff Vinik and Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn, announced the partnership as part of Delos and Strategic Property Partners’ CGI commitment to improve the way people live by building healthy communities.
Delos and Strategic Property Partners, a joint venture of Cascade Investment, LLC and Jeff Vinik, will invest more than $20 million specifically for health- and wellness-focused, state-of-the-art technologies and design strategies for the project.
“More than half of all people in the world now live in cities, and we spend 90 percent of our time indoors,” explained Delos Founder Paul Scialla. “The built environment – our cities – are human habitat, and we have the knowledge to design them to sustain our health, not to harm it.”
In 2012, Delos made a Clinton Global Initiative commitment to create a health and wellness standard for buildings. Since announcing the commitment in 2012, Delos has founded the International WELL Building Institute™ and launched the WELL Building Standard® globally, which has already enrolled nearly 20 million square feet of building projects in 12 countries in the program. This new commitment builds on that success and tackles the even greater challenge of creating city-scale developments built for health and wellness, and like the WELL Standard for buildings, will be third-party certified globally by Green Business Certification Inc. (GBCI).
The Tampa city district will serve as an example to the world that city design can be healthy. Delos will deploy its proven research and development capabilities to identify city-scale development strategies to support public health and wellness. The principles and foundation of the WELL Building Standard - which focuses on seven categories of building performance, including air, water, nourishment, light, fitness, comfort and mind - will be applied to the project. All buildings within the Tampa city district will pursue WELL Certification, including new buildings such as a 400-500 room hotel, a 650,000 square foot signature office tower, the University of South Florida Morsani College of Medicine and Heart Institute, and approximately 200,000 square feet of retail, restaurant and entertainment space. Additionally, the community itself will become the world’s first WELL Certified city district and will feature design and technology strategies including enhanced walkability, abundant green space including low pollen trees, sound barriers to support acoustic comfort, access to healthy foods, green infrastructure, daily monitoring and reporting of district air quality, and access to the amenities of an urban waterfront – all of which contribute to the wellness and quality of life of the people who live and work in the development.
The Tampa wellness city district project is targeted to break ground in 2016 with phase one to be completed within five years. It is estimated that approximately 7,500 people will directly benefit from the wellness community through living and working environments. Importantly, an additional three million people per year who are users and visitors to the Tampa wellness city district will also be positively affected.
“Cascade is committed to creating a world-class development in Tampa that offers the highest quality of life for its residents and users. Implementing health and wellness features throughout the district will help us achieve that,” said Michael Larson, Chief Investment Officer of Cascade Investment.
Strategic Property Partners’ Jeff Vinik said, “As our development plans continue to take shape, Strategic Property Partners envisions a walkable, 24-7 urban district committed to the true wellbeing of our Tampa guests, students, residents and tenants. We foresee our Tampa urban district setting a new standard for wellness and sustainability.”
Leading research demonstrates not only that where you live can affect your lifespan, but also that how your community is designed can be linked to your health. A growing body of evidence demonstrates that people living in walkable, compact, and connected neighborhoods enjoy better health – including lower rates of obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease. The health impacts of the built environment don’t end there. Growing medical evidence links air pollution and heart disease.
By combining smart city technologies and design strategies such as comprehensive air quality monitoring, low-emissions transportation, green infrastructure and walkability, the Tampa wellness city district will show that people have the choice to not only create cities that can thrive in harmony with the natural systems, but also to build communities that proactively eliminate risk factors for chronic disease.
Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn noted, “Tampa is proud to be the first city in the world to be home to a WELL Certified District and to be the pioneer for this exciting initiative. Together, we will demonstrate that city design – not just building design - can be healthy and sustainable, making Tampa a leader in the wellness industry and our downtown, a destination. We look forward to participating with our partners Delos and SPP to play a role in crafting a WELL Community Standard that will become the basis for similar projects in other cities.”