The County of Placer desired to transform an underutilized 50-acre tract of publicly-owned land adjacent to its Civic Center into a one-of-a-kind destination that attracts both a local and regional audience– active during days, evenings, weekdays and weekends, year round. The principles that guided the design were: 1) a thorough integration of land uses that would result in the intermixing of locals and visitors alike, whether residents in the site’s new housing units, those seeking “farm to glass” dining, or recreational opportunities; and that would promote a ”circular economy” enabling people who work there to also live there, and vis versa; 2) capitalize upon scale and experience of such a large site, by minimizing intrusion of cars; 3) imbuing the site with authenticity, in the form of an agrarian atmosphere recollective of the County’s early roots and that reconnects visitors with how things are made; 4) a self-sustaining / resilient approach to the landscape and architecture, through the use of natural light, ventilation, stormwater collection, and provision of shaded outdoor spaces for an increasingly hot, dry region. That resiliency included provision for functional flexibility in order to allow the plan to ride out and be adapted to changes in tenancy as a result of fluctuation in the real estate market in general.