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Mashpee Commons Mashpee, MA

EDITOR'S DESIGN CHOICE

Mashpee Commons Town Center. Mashpee Commons has a range of national retailers and local mom-and-pop stores. Image courtesy of DPZ and Cornish Associates

Plaza and outdoor café seating at Mashpee Commons. Image courtesy of DPZ and Cornish Associates 

Live-work units at Mashpee Commons. Image courtesy of DPZ and Cornish Associates

Aerial view of Mashpee Commons. Image courtesy of DPZ and Cornish Associates

Mashpee Commons master plan. Image courtesy of DPZ and Cornish Associates

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Mashpee Commons, located in the Town of Mashpee on Cape Cod, was the nation’s first retrofit of a strip shopping center into a mixed-use, pedestrian-friendly town center. Built in the 1960s, Mashpee Commons was originally a strip commercial center with a large asphalt parking lot in front. Then, in 1986, the shopping center began to be transformed into a development reminiscent of a traditional New England downtown. The original strip center had a few stores, a restaurant, and a theater. Today, Mashpee Commons not only has more than one hundred shops and restaurants, as well as a cinema, but also a library, church, post office, senior center, offices, and variety of housing units. The architecture reflects vernacular architecture of Cape Cod.

Mashpee Commons, which includes deed-restricted affordable housing and smaller units such as studio apartments above retail space, has helped remedy Cape Cod’s shortage of workforce housing.

View home improvement TV show host Bob Vila’s tour of Mashpee Commons:
http://www.bobvila.com/sections/tv/projects/12-manhattan-remodel-and-cape-cod-affordable/episodes/145-building-affordable-homes-on-cape-cod/videos/1084751807001-discussing-community-planning-at-mashpee-commons-and-affordable-housing-problems-on-cape-cod