by Olivia Young<\/p>\n
Friends, family and community members remember Kingsbridge Heights resident Petr Stand not only as the award-winning architect behind the renowned South Bronx development Melrose Commons, but as someone whose passion and thoughtfulness colored all areas of his life. <\/p>\n
Petr Stand died May 31 at 75 years old, and was celebrated with a memorial at Lehman College June 27. On his online memory wall, loved ones described him as kind, compassionate, intelligent and a designer led by the heart. <\/p>\n
Petr Stand was born in Manhattan, his son, Jeremy Stand said, and graduated from City College of New York\u2019s School of Architecture and Environmental Studies in 1973, according to his obituary. He and his wife of 54 years, Susan Blaine Walker, moved to Kingsbridge Heights in the late 1980s, Jeremy Stand said. <\/p>\n
The most well known of his projects, reflecting a commitment to community, was Melrose Commons, a 33-block revitalization project that replaced empty or distressed properties with a mix of community, commercial and residential spaces, according to Magnusson Architecture and Planning, the firm at which Petr Stand was principal during development. <\/p>\n
In the 1990s, the South Bronx was recovering from decades of disinvestment, including the lasting effects of the 1970s wave of fires that made a name for the \u201cBronx is burning\u201d era.\u00a0 According to the firm, large parts of the neighborhood were vacant, and there was a serious need for investment toward housing access and infrastructure. <\/p>\n
Residents rejected a city-made renewal plan for the Melrose Commons neighborhood, as the plan called for demolishing and replacing properties, displacing longtime Bronxites in the process, according to the firm. Determined to have input on the future of their neighborhood, residents formed what would become community nonprofit Nos Quedamos \u2014 which means \u201cwe stay\u201d in Spanish. <\/p>\n
Together, Petr Stand, his firm and Nos Quedamos created the Melrose Commons Master Plan in 1994, a \u201cstandout example of community-based planning from a time when revitalization was critical, but approaches were often top-down,\u201d the firm wrote.<\/p>\n
Petr Stand led the design of more than 1,500 affordable housing units in the Melrose Commons neighborhood, his obituary said, and hundreds more across the city, both through Magnusson Architecture and Planning and his own organization, Stand Development and Consulting. <\/p>\n
Anna Vincenty, who worked at Nos Quedamos when their collaboration began, developed a friendship with Petr Stand that would last more than 30 years. <\/p>\n
Vincenty added that Petr Stand always \u201cgave of himself,\u201d whether it meant late nights, long weeks, or hard conversations with city agencies, all to ensure the vision for Melrose Commons came to fruition. He was a conscientious, kind and positive man, she said. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe grew to be not coworkers, not friends,\u201d\u00a0 Vincenty recalled. \u201cWe grew more like a family \u2026 We all ate together, we cried together, we laughed together.\u201d <\/p>\n
Jeremy Stand also worked at Nos Quedamos early on, and he and his father continued their professional collaboration later through Stand Development and Consulting. Currently, Jeremy Stand said he is still working on the last building that is a part of the Melrose Commons Urban Renewal Plan. <\/p>\n
It is the \u201clast sliver\u201d of a site awarded by the city more than 20 years ago for the construction of affordable housing, Jeremy Stand said. It couldn\u2019t be built on before, as someone else owned the rail tracks below the property, he said. The 17-story, 214 unit affordable housing building is both an honor to Petr Stand, and a project that intertwines with his son\u2019s grief. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s going to be very emotional to go through each phase of this building \u2014 I hesitate to say without him, because I\u2019m going to feel his presence each step of the way,\u201d Jeremy Stand said. <\/p>\n
The family, which also included Petr Stand\u2019s other son, Blaine Stand, didn\u2019t have much money growing up, Jeremy Stand said, but the boys never really took notice. Their dad made everything fun, he said, such as frequent camping trips \u2014 an activity that was cheap but adventurous, taking them across the country over a 30-year summer tradition. <\/p>\n
Comic books were a shared love between Petr Stand and his sons. When Jeremy Stand was little, he remembered his dad giving them a choice: they could continue collecting comic books weekly, or they could buy cable television. They went with comic books. <\/p>\n
It was that idea of choice that Jeremy Stand said he still holds close to him now that his dad is gone, and that was weaved throughout the design of Melrose Commons. <\/p>\n
\u201cEven when we don\u2019t have enough money to do all the things, that doesn\u2019t mean we can\u2019t actively choose the things that we want to do and not feel lessened by it,\u201d Jeremy Stand said. <\/p>\n
In Melrose Commons, Petr Stand would sit with the residents, tweaking apartment buildings to meet their needs, Jeremy Stand said. A resident pointed out that delivery men could see into the apartment, so Petr Stand built a vestibule, Jeremy Stand recalled. Another single parent said they needed to help their kids with homework while cooking dinner, so Petr Stand opened the space between the kitchen and the living room and put in an island, Tara Stand, Jeremy Stand\u2019s wife, said. <\/p>\n
Petr Stand, other involved developers and residents could have lamented over the vacant land in the neighborhood and lack of city services, but they didn\u2019t, Jeremy Stand said, they saw a blank canvas with potential.<\/p>\n
\n\t\tKeywords<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\tPetr Stand,\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t Melrose Commons,\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t Kingsbridge Heights,\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t South Bronx,\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t affordable housing,\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t Magnusson Architecture and Planning,\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t Nos Quedamos\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"by Olivia Young Friends, family and community members remember Kingsbridge Heights resident Petr Stand not only as the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":292363,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[433,128,10270,111652,111651,9,24,111653,63,111650,2393,129,131,130],"class_list":["post-292362","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-the-bronx","tag-affordable-housing","tag-bronx","tag-kingsbridge-heights","tag-magnusson-architecture-and-planning","tag-melrose-commons","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nos-quedamos","tag-nyc","tag-petr-stand","tag-south-bronx","tag-the-bronx","tag-the-bronx-headlines","tag-the-bronx-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292362","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=292362"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292362\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/292363"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=292362"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=292362"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=292362"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}