Team Wins Pacific Coast Builders Conference (PCBC) Gold Nugget Grand Award

Sept. 1, 2009 - PRLog -- NEWPORT BEACH, CA – A team of homebuilding professionals who joined forces in a special project to create new opportunities in a down market, has been honored with the first-ever Gold Nugget Grand Award for “Imagining the Future – Open Class Design Charrette,” a new category that was created to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Pacific Coast Builders Conference (PCBC).
Spearheaded by John Martin of Martin & Associates, a leading community planning, design and marketing firm, the GEN M 2345 team created a comprehensive plan to transform a 23-acre site in Huntington Beach that was previously slated for single family homes. Their new concept, Sea•Shore Village, is envisioned as a collection of multi-generational neighborhoods with affordable homes to fit changed lifestyles and life stages. The new village design features a three unit building with proximity and privacy for 3, 4, and maybe even 5 generations, home-based business opportunities, two story townhomes with the master bedrooms on the first level, and compact carriage units. The unique layouts are designed to accommodate move-down baby boomers, their aging parents, and their boomerang adult and returned-from-college children to all live comfortably together. GEN M stands for multi-generational and 2345 represents the 2, 3, 4 and 5 generations of residents who could live together in similar villages, neighborhoods, and homes in the future.
“Gen M 2345’s message is one of hope,” Martin explained. “Hope that we can turn the market around sooner rather than later. It provides the vision to create new concepts for a different market reality, and it demonstrates how to increase values in a down economy. We are very proud that our innovative blueprint for the future was rewarded with the Gold Nugget Grand Award.”
That award was shared by the entire GEN M 2345 team that included: Martin & Associates (John Martin, Brett Chebithes, Patty Carmichael and Linda Edwards); The Planning Center (Randy Jackson and Van Smith); A2 Collaborative-Architects (Diane Hussey, Rick Schmidt, Chris Roberts, Keith Moreland, Karl Dakteris and David Tardiff); Pelican Properties (Dick Hamm); Jackson DeMarco Tidus Peckenpaugh (Scott Jackson); Merit Property Management (Bob Cardoza and Ben Shaffer); Valley Crest Design Group (Jim Hogan and Ben Braun); Kovach Marketing (Dana Kovach and Gina Nixon); Rohl LLC (Ken Rohl); and Cornell University student Sasha Truong.
These visionary leaders were inspired by the severe challenges facing the housing industry in the current recession, including a deep reduction in the availability of equity capital and financing. To meet those challenges head-on, they created a complementary, interdisciplinary creative and implementation team to conceive, design, process, finance, develop and market innovative product concepts that can be successfully developed immediately. Ironically, the team's solution – multi-generational housing – is directly related to the current economic downturn. A recent survey conducted by AARP found that as Americans of all ages feel the effects of the economic crisis, more and more people are having to live with a family member or friend to share expenses. The survey also revealed a direct relationship between loss of income and young adults moving back in with their parents. Clearly, there is increased demand for a multi-generational solution like GEN M 2345's Sea•Shore Village, and the group demonstrated its viability from a financial standpoint. The setting of Sea•Shore Village provides real solutions for targeting growing future market segments in today's economy.
ABOUT MARTIN & ASSOCIATES:
Martin and Associates are dedicated to assisting those who create, plan, design, develop, market and manage communities and neighborhoods by providing vision, strategic thinking and market positioning and by implementing action plans through research, analysis, consultation and partnering. Additional information is available at www.martin-associates.net.
ABOUT GOLD NUGGET AWARDS:
The oldest and largest program of its kind, The Gold Nugget Awards honor architectural design and planning excellence in more than four dozen categories. Now in its 46th year, the competition draws entries from 14 western states and internationally.

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Martin & Associates are dedicated to assisting those who design, develop, market and manage communities and neighborhoods by providing vision, strategic thinking and positioning and by implementing action plans through research and analysis.