Common Area Design

How we approach it

Sited so residents actually use them.

The amenity package has stretched a long way beyond the pool. Garden apartment communities increasingly offer amenity packages including spas, exercise rooms, game rooms, community rooms, tot lots, sport courts, and trails — and the active adult market has pushed the bar even higher, with amenity buildings of 30,000 square feet or more housing indoor pools, walking tracks, exercise rooms, and full-time activity directors. Bailey works the amenity program with the developer at feasibility, because a pool that's right-sized for 100 units is undersized for 300 — and adding it after the fact is expensive.

Visibility from the leasing office is the first siting rule. Prospects who can see the pool from the leasing office driveway are more likely to sign than prospects who have to be told it exists. Bailey draws sight lines from the leasing office and the project entry early, and we site the most marketable amenities — the pool, the clubhouse, the dog park — where they actually show. The amenity that nobody can see from the street might as well not be there.

Resident accessibility is the second siting rule. Every cluster of buildings has to have a comfortable walk to the amenity complex, ideally under 400 feet, on a path that doesn't require crossing resident parking. The walk is the daily test of whether the site plan works. Bailey designs the pedestrian path network as the spine of the amenity layout, with the pool, the mail kiosk, and the dog park tied into a connected system that residents can use every day without thinking about it.

ADA accessibility is the third rule, and it's a legal floor as well as a design constraint. Every common area has to be reachable by an accessible route — no thresholds, slopes no steeper than 1:12, cross slopes under 1:48, no handrails skipped at landings. Pool decks need accessible entry. Fitness equipment needs accessible clearance. Dog parks need accessible gates. Bailey draws the accessible route first and fits the rest of the amenity around it, because retrofitting accessibility on a finished site is brutal and visible.

Maintenance access is the fourth rule, and the easiest to forget. Pool service trucks need to back to the pool equipment room without driving through resident parking. Landscape crews need a service path to the planted areas. Trash vehicles need to reach the dumpsters without weaving through the dog park. Bailey designs maintenance circulation as a separate layer, with screened service drives and back-of-house access, so the day-to-day operation of the property doesn't conflict with the day-to-day life of the residents.

Open space accounting is the last layer. Most Treasure Valley cities require a percentage of site area as open space, and the count usually allows landscaped common areas, pedestrian plazas, and (with limits) detention or retention facilities. Bailey runs the open space numbers against the city's specific definition during entitlement, because the city's definition and the developer's understanding don't always agree. The amenity complex, the dog park, the playground, the perimeter trail, and the detention basin all show up in the count when they're designed to.