Omaha's newest urban village owes its look in part to the traditional Omaha Indian village of 500 years ago.
David Ertz, a former Nebraskan and now Philadelphia architect, created the design for Midtown Crossing at Turner Park by combining the Omaha Tribe's traditional village layout with the topography of the land bordered by 31st, 33rd, Farnam and Dodge Streets.
The concept is now a reality, and at 11 a.m. Tuesday Mutual of Omaha and city and state leaders will dedicate the $300 million project.
Ertz's Midtown Crossing work began in an unusual way.
He had collaborated on other projects with ECI Investment Advisors, a Chicago development company that had sent representatives to Omaha in hopes of working with the city-owned parking garages.
ECI heard about Mutual's plan to develop land east of its headquarters, and the company asked Ertz, a principal with Cope Linder Architects, to offer some ideas that would capture Destination Midtown's vision of improving that part of the city.
Ertz has a bachelor's degree from Washington University and a master's degree from the University of Pennsylvania. He first came to Omaha in the 1970s from Verdigre, Neb., as Knox County's representative in a spelling bee sponsored by The World-Herald.
Years later, as an adult architect looking for inspiration for the Mutual design, Ertz stood on a hill near Mutual's headquarters and looked east, past the property's scruffy parking lots and aging, low-rise office buildings, toward Turner Park and downtown.
“We knew instantly that that was the A-plus view and the orientation for the project,” he said. “In an urban setting, you love to have a skyline view or a park view. To have both is kind of rare.”
His crescent-shaped arrangement of Midtown's three main buildings was “sympathetic” to the Omaha Indian tribe's traditional circular camp sites, which had east-facing openings in honor of the tribe's migration in the 1500s from Ohio to the banks of the Missouri River.
“That circular geometry, opening to the east, I thought, had great historic significance and also felt kind of right,” Ertz said.
It was a “happy coincidence” that Mutual's corporate logo has the head of an Indian, he said. The three condominium buildings are curved so they “embrace” the park rather than just stand alongside it, giving the development a “strong public form.”
Ken Cook, president of the Mutual subsidiary that owns the project, recalls the meeting when he first saw Ertz's proposal.
Ertz unrolled his drawings on a conference table for a group of executives who had seen a dozen or more other proposals. They looked at the plans, looked at each other and immediately knew, Cook said.
“This was the design that we wanted,” he said. “The other designs all had open spaces, but as internal courtyards with the buildings facing inward, kind of an enclave. They weren't open, friendly, neighborhood-centric propositions.”
Ertz's design opened the project to the neighborhood and to the city. Holland Basham Architects of Omaha collaborated on the project once it got under way.
“The idea was to make a walkable, pedestrian-friendly neighborhood where you could be far less car-dependent, and you could live, work, play, enjoy,” said Ertz, who will attend Tuesday's dedication.
Mutual's decision to build the entire project, including residences, retail areas and services and the expanded Turner Park, was key to the project's economic potential, he said. Farnam Street's conversion from one-way to two-way traffic and its wide sidewalks with benches, lights, plantings and pedestrian crosswalks is ideal for retail shops on both sides of the street.
Midtown's restaurants will be clustered, mostly facing the park. Open space along the interior elliptical drive between the main buildings and the park creates a “people-watching” feature and a pleasant area for outdoor dining during good weather.
Mutual and the designers also worked with the City of Omaha to ensure that Turner Park remains a public park and not a private sanctuary for Midtown residents and customers. That's one reason there's plenty of parking and access to the enlarged park.
“The park is meant to be sort of a new living room for Omaha,” Ertz said, open to public events and activities such as the coming Jazz on the Green and outdoor market.
Other design features are subtle but functional, he said. Entrances to the residential buildings are shielded from public areas. The shape and color of the new buildings fit with Mutual's existing offices to the west. Drive-up courtyards welcome visitors and provide drop-off points.
Ertz also drew inspiration for his design from the small Piazza St. Ignazio in Rome and the Royal Crescent, an area of large historical homes laid out in a curve along a road in Bath, England.
But Midtown Crossing is its own presence, he said.
“To have a strong and memorable public space is a worthy goal.”
Contact the writer:
444-1080, steve.jordon@owh.com
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