COMMUNITY Development

Croman Mill

Ashland, Oregon

Wellness Community | Mixed Use Development | Passivehouse Certified

Recrafting a Legacy: Creating a Vibrant Community of Wellness and Sustainability on a Former Lumber Yard

Integrated development

Located at the southern end of Ashland, Croman Mill has the opportunity to create a community that embraces healthy and active lifestyles.

The project includes the following components:

• Redevelopment of a degraded brownfield site formerly used as a timber mill

• New urbanist community design that focuses on community connectivity where humans are prioritized over cars

• 500 homes designed for multi-generational living and mixed incomes that are to be Passive House certified

• Mixed use development featuring shops, maker spaces, and markets

Overview

Croman Mill is an exciting new development coming to the beautiful town of Ashland, Oregon. Located in the Rogue River Valley at the foothills of the Siskiyou Mountains, Ashland is a vibrant small town with a population of 21,000.

Renowned for hosting an annual Shakespeare Festival, Ashland attracts both residents and visitors with its unique culture that embraces and celebrates the arts, nature, and community.

The name “Croman Mill” comes from the former mill that was located on the site and closed in 1996. The goal is to clean up the site and create a new connected urban district for the town. The Croman Mill project has embraced the planning and design philosophy of New Urbanism, which can help deliver a range of housing types, shops, and public amenities such as parks, trails, and cultural centers.

The project seeks to create both market-rate and affordable for-sale and rental homes that are built to the rigorous Passive House design standards.

Led by developer Michael Weinstock of Townmakers LLC, the project aims to deliver up to 500 homes and mixed-use spaces over three phases.

Land planning and design was done by Qamar & Associates Inc, Urban Planning by Structure Naturalis Inc.

New Urbanism

New Urbanism is a planning and development approach based on the principles of how cities and towns had been built for the last several centuries: walkable blocks and streets, housing and shopping in close proximity, and accessible public spaces. In other words: New Urbanism focuses on human-scaled urban design. 

The planning and design promotes environmentally friendly habitats, and contributes to a sense of place by embracing a diversity of home types, age ranges, income levels, and enables economic development through job creation.

Land Acknowledgement

This land is located within the ancestral homelands of the Shasta, Takelma, and Latgawa peoples. In the 1850s, these Tribes were displaced when colonization and Gold Rush brought thousands of Euro-Americans to their lands, leading to warfare, epidemics, starvation, and villages being burned. Starting in 1853, treaties were signed, confederating these Tribes and others together, who would be referred to as the Rogue River Tribe. 

These treaties ceded most of their homelands to the United States, and in return, they were guaranteed a permanent homeland reserved for them. At the end of the Rogue River Wars in 1856, these Tribes and many other Tribes from Western Oregon were removed to the Siletz Reservation and the Grand Ronde Reservation. 

Today, the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde Community of Oregon and the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians are living descendants of the Takelma, Shasta, and Latgawa peoples of this area. 

Proximity

• 2.7 mi to downtown Ashland

• 2.3 hrs to Bend

• 4.5 hrs to Portland

• 5.5 hrs to San Francisco

Neal Collins

neal@chooselatitude.com