Adams Crossing is a major mixed-use sustainable community in Brighton, Colorado. CLC was chosen as the Master Plan design team to develop a community vision, framework and overall master plan for more than 800 acres at the intersection of two major Highways in northern Denver. CLC began the master plan process with the facilitation of a design charrette utilizing key individuals from the county, city, development team, transit entities and other community members to assist in the visioning of Adams Crossing. CLC effectively collected the information from the charrette to create the core design principles for the master plan.

The Adams Crossing program is unique to many new projects. The development of the new Adam’s County Government Center, located within the heart of the project, created a consolidation of new jobs onsite with the combination of all county offices into one single campus. This allowed the project team to truly focus on the equation of designing the project under the parameters of Live, Work and Play.

The City of Brighton was recently recognized as a leader in the renewable energy sector, so CLC built on the synergy of the region and layered many sustainable design elements into the master plan such as onsite wind energy, sustainable stormwater management, pedestrian connectivity to the future light rail and other sustainable measures.

As part of the master plan process, the project team came to the realization that the implementation of the project vision was going to be hindered by the existing municipal code. CLC led the discussion on a city appointed taskforce assigned to review, suggest edits and to provide testimony at City Council. A revised mixed-use zoning code was successfully adopted by the City in September 2010.