A Phila. touch in China project

Milner, whose Chadds Ford firm has among its focuses classic American building design and preservation, has been retained for the second phase of the residential and office-space community, which encompasses several blocks in Dalian, a coastal city rapidly becoming a major IT and software center.

Groundbreaking is contingent on property acquisition; Milner said recently that he was unsure when that would happen.

After the initial phone call from the developer in 2009, Milner said, he scrambled. His client wanted to visit first, so Milner organized two weeks' worth of bus trips to 18th-century sites around Philadelphia, such as Fairmount Park, the 1767 country manor Cliveden, and Mount Pleasant, the 1760s Georgian mansion.

Tang, a U.S.-based civil engineer with an MBA from Indiana University's Kelley School of Business in Bloomington, was the key link, acting as translator and liaison for developer and architect.

"They expressed an interest in architectural styles, in East Coast late-18th-century, mainly Georgian and Federal styles," Milner said.

"Southern Hill 1910 was the name of the neighborhood," which was established around that year, Tang said.

The developer was intrigued by the urban-design aspect of U.S. houses laid out on a city grid, as well as by Philadelphia's late-18th-century architecture.

Challenges in China? Milner and his firm have had a few. One was design by committee.

"Sometimes, there were 30 people in the room in a typical meeting," Milner said, including local engineers, construction managers, marketing personnel, and the developer's personal designer. "It was exhausting because meetings lasted all day. But ultimately, they developed confidence in us."

Master bedrooms had to face south, or potential buyers would not be interested, according to the Chinese marketers.

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A Phila. touch in China project