Size:  20 acres

Units:  Mixed-use neighborhood with 63 homes

Developer:  Fornine Investments

Jurisdiction:  Sutter Creek, Amador County, California

Status:  On-hold

Synopsis:  A 3,000-foot deep gold mine shaft, mine tailings requiring remediation, steep terrain, and native oaks prompted many to refer to this site as “undevelopable”.  Pangaea’s presentation of a grading-driven site design and “Mother Lode” architectural character prompted one local leader to refer to the plan as “brilliant” during a local television interview. Pangaea provided urban planning, architecture, and preliminary engineering design services for the site in California’s Gold Country. Elevated above Highway 49, the site anchors the southern end of historic downtown Sutter Creek. A mixed-use neighborhood comprised of five acres of commercial adjacent to 15 acres of hillside residential is designed to work with the land to achieve a sensitive grading approach.

Pangaea’s unique blending of urban design principles with engineering realities was broadened by providing both commercial building elevations and residential floor plans and elevations for 63 homes tailored to both the local real estate market and the stepped-pad conditions dictated by the hillside terrain and the desire to minimize landform alteration. Additional challenges included segregating access between the commercial and residential areas from a common access street, providing pedestrian access between these two land uses, and integrating the site into the existing pedestrian network of the community and to the proposed adjacent community park.