While the townhouses, home lots and office spaces at Glenwood will trade for market-rate prices, Brewer does hope to develop a portion of affordable rental housing on the site.

Before final zoning permits are approved by the city, Green Street intends to establish a Builder's Guild, a consortium of builders, developers and contractors that will offer input on the proposed new urbanism project, Brewer says.

To be a member of the Builder's Guild, contractors and developers must adhere to certain requirements established by Green Street.

Many of the qualifications are based on an environmentally conscious theme, Brewer says. "When it comes to building this site, we are going to do our very best to use environmental best practices and pay attention to resource efficiency, energy efficiency and water quality.

Other challenges to building this particular urban infill project include higher land prices, receiving the proper zoning and planning permits, Brewer contends.

"Land prices are cheaper in the suburbs than in the city," he says. "A lot of land around this area has been hopefully priced based on the possibility of someone building a high-rise on it. As a result, there's a lot of land that is empty and underutilized."

Last year, Green Street paid Novare Group Inc. $150,000 per acre for the site.

"We still need to get permission from the city for rezoning the area," he says. "For one, the streets will be narrower than usual and there will be slow-speed traffic geometries. It's not going to be normal vanilla stuff."

The project is expected to be completed phases within the next three to five years, Brewer says.

Some of the properties will be developed by Green Street and others will be placed out to bid.

"We'll probably end up developing a lot of the mixed-use buildings, Brewer says. "We are most interested in building for-rent product that we can continue to own for a long period of time rather than assets we would sell right away."