May 20, 2026
A New Mixed-Use: Anchor Institutions Create Long-Term Community Value
How can you mitigate the development risk in urban projects? How can owners and users improve the social sustainability and longevity of a project?
These are questions that are asked by many stakeholders, and especially by those neighbors and community members that are impacted the most by new housing developments. To help find these answers, KSS Architects examined our recent projects and spoke with end users, developers, and clients to examine the benefits and challenges of anchor tenants in an urban context, beyond the realm of street-level retail.
When done right, mixed-use developments can animate the street, activate the surrounding community, and complement the housing above. But how do you find the “right” mix? In light of these questions, mixed-use projects are increasingly trending towards the inclusion of significant community institutions like museums, schools, and even grocery stores as long-term, anchor tenants.
By putting the housing in place, you’re creating a need for various services and if your building offers those services, it’s a net positive all around.
Antonio Valla, Founder, Uptown Development Group
Strategic Development
There is a growing trend toward integrating education, healthcare, and community facilities into mixed-use developments, reflecting a shift in how people want to live, work, and access essential services. This supports healthier, more connected lifestyles while strengthening the economic and social fabric of properties.
“By putting the housing in place, you’re creating a need for various services and if your building offers those services, it’s a net positive all around. It benefits the building and the neighborhood with active uses, it’s good for the tenants, and I think the market bears that out,” shares Antonio Valla, Founder of Uptown Development Group.
By integrating a grocery store at street level, this mixed-use development creates an active pedestrian experience while providing essential services to the surrounding community.
Corona, Queens is one such market. In the 1960s, the first Food Bazaar grocery store opened and quickly became a community anchor by providing international foods to the community and functioning as a gathering space. Today, KSS is working alongside Shorewood to revitalize the site with a new, six-story, mixed-use building that expands the existing supermarket and adds affordable residential units above.
With grocery and access to food as the project theme, a welcoming pedestrian experience will be prioritized through careful sidewalk and entry design that celebrates the fabric of the community, coupled with the rebirth of a dynamic market that is the new Food Bazaar. Important to the function of the store, vehicular flow will be planned to minimize disruption and integrate the commercial storefront with the building as a whole.
This redevelopment reflects the area’s cultural legacy while bringing a fresh, modern vision to one of Queens’ most dynamic and diverse communities.
Mixed-Use Viability
Incorporating amenities into housing developments reflects the shifting priorities of tenants and by correctly matching services to community needs and wants can attract long-term tenants and serve as an anchor that revitalizes the neighborhood. However, when downtown density and commercial strength are lacking, mixed-use occupants can struggle and the neighborhood can flounder.
“Having amenities is critical to a developer’s business model – it makes residential more attractive while making the neighborhood attractive. But there needs to be a reason for both,” says Valla.
Built to transform 12 blocks of downtown Newark, KSS designed a number of key and integral buildings and uses within the redevelopment of Teacher’s Village. This increasingly diverse range of uses – daycares, charter schools, a community gym, retail - creates a symbiotic relationship between the prior and current community members, contributing to the social sustainability that has thrived to this day. Teacher’s Village encourages educators to live, and invest, in where they work.
Value & Impact
Mixed-use models can increase long-term value, community impact, and placemaking potential even if short-term leasing is harder. It can transform neighborhoods more effectively than standalone housing.
As Jason Chmura, Partner, KSS Architects, recently heard at the Newark Summit, mixed-use projects are more successful when they move beyond the traditional ground floor retail paradigm.
“It was clear that projects where thoughtful engagement of local cultural and social institutions were the most successful. Held as clear and inspiring examples, LMXD described how The Newark Museum of Art as well as Rutgers Newark were invaluable partners in their recent developments,” shared Jason.
Museum Parc reimagines mixed-use development through the integration of housing, public art, and cultural space that connects residents and community.
Known as Museum Parc, a new ground-up development is rising just south of The Newark Museum of Art, New Jersey’s oldest museum. With a planned 250 mixed-income apartments across two buildings, ground-floor retail, and additional cultural spaces such as a 4,500-square-foot glass-enclosed gallery and public sculpture garden, the project is slated to wrap up in 2027.
It [Museum Parc] was really meant to complement the museum. The focus of the design was to make it inclusive, to go along with the mixed-income component, so we are creating a muse between two buildings.
Jake Pine, Managing Director, LMXD
Museum Parc will engage the community, strengthen the identity of the Newark Museum of Art, and revitalize and expand the arts district in Newark. The design is sensitively inserted into the existing urban context to create a welcoming experience for residents and the community.
“It was really meant to complement the museum,” said Jake Pine of LMXD, which is developing Museum Parc alongside MCI Collective and MSquared. “The focus of the design was to make it inclusive, to go along with the mixed-income component, so we are creating a muse between two buildings. We wanted to feel contextual with its surrounding area, but not trying to be something that it’s not. It is new construction.”
Designed to support everyday life, this mixed-use development combines housing and essential retail to foster a more connected, resilient community within the Newark, NJ, Ironbound Neighborhood.
Future Viability
As cities continue to evolve, mixed-use developments that integrate cultural, educational, and essential community-serving uses will be better positioned to create enduring economic value, strengthen neighborhood identity, and support resilient urban growth. KSS Architects’ current work reinforces the effectiveness of integrating strategic-use components within mixed-use environments, demonstrating how thoughtful partnerships and purpose-driven programming can enhance both project performance and community impact.
By moving beyond the traditional retail model and embracing institutions that serve daily needs and foster social connection, developers can create environments that are economically resilient, culturally relevant, and deeply rooted in place. When aligned with the priorities of residents and the surrounding neighborhood, these developments become more than housing; they become catalysts for long-term vitality, investment, and inclusive urban transformation.
