July 12, 2007
shape the future of downtown Richmond
Your opportunity to help transform Richmond starts next Friday! From July 20 through July 26, the City of Richmond, Venture Richmond and Florida-based planning firm Dover Kohl invite the public to participate in a highly interactive process to update Richmond’s Downtown Master Plan.
The series of discussions and design events (known as a charrette) are open to the entire community – residents, business owners, non-profits and government officials. Each day, a public design studio will be updated to reflect – in the moment – the ideas contributed by participants. The results of this week of work will shape the future of Downtown Richmond, and the broader Richmond community.
For ongoing coverage of the Downtown Plan charrette, visit Buttermilk & Molasses’ Richmond Planning and Development page. For more details on the Downtown Plan charrette, visit the city’s Department of Community Development website, or contact Brooke Hardin with the City of Richmond at (804) 646-6310 or email him at brooke.hardin@richmondgov.com. To participate, drop by one or all of the following public events:
The Charrette Schedule
Friday, July 20 – Kick-off Presentation
Location: Plant Zero (Hull Street & E. 3rd Street)
Time: 6:30 pm - 8:00 pm
Event Description: At the start of the charrette week, a “food for thought” presentation will be given to educate the public on best practices in downtown urban planning.
Saturday, July 21 – Hands-on Design Session
Location: Plant Zero (Hull Street & E. 3rd Street)
Time: 9:00 am - 2:00 pm
Event Description: At this design session, we will work in small groups sharing ideas and thoughts on the future of Downtown.
Sunday – Thursday, July 22 - 26 - Open Design Studio
Location: The Commons @ Plant Zero (220 Hull Street)
Time: Sunday 1:00 pm – 7:00pm; Monday – Wednesday 9:00 am – 7:00 pm; Thursday 9:00am – 12:00pm
Event Description: The design team will work on-site creating the plan. We invite the community to stop by and offer continual input and monitor the work-in-progress.
Thursday, July 26 - Work-in-Progress Presentation
Location: Plant Zero (Hull Street & E. 3rd Street)
Time: 6:30 – 9:00pm
Event Description: At the end of the charrette week, the design team will present the work-in progress to the community.
Article based on an email from John Sarvay. Contact him at jsarvay@yahoo.com for additional details.
This could be a great opportunity for us to get our voice heard about public space and urban planning for the city.
I’m going and going to advocate for 2 things that I would love to see happen as downtown develops (see I put that in the affirmative tense, like it is really going to happen = optimism)
1. A central open public space similar to Portland Oregon Pioneer Courthouse Square(www.pioneercourthousesquare.org/), NYC Bryant Park (www.bryantpark.org/) etc
2. GREENING—the works, MORE trees, green roofs, recycling bins curbside, LEED Green Building Initiatives for downtown development.
If other people are going and wanted a place to find out more information about what a downtown could be in order to gather their thoughts before the charrette - this organization has some great information-
Project for Public Space- http://www.pps.org/
They even has their reader’s votes on the 600 great public spaces listed
http://www.pps.org/great_public_spaces/.
V…what a good link and what a wonderful selection of books available at pps. Thank you.
Ann and everyone….
I got excited earlier and ordered both–
The Great Neighborhood Book
A Do-it-Yourself Guide to Placemaking
&
How to Turn a Place Around
A Handbook for Creating Successful Public Spaces
Once I read through folks are more than welcome to borrow… vdiamond@comcast.net
I will toss out several ideas that have come to mind with regard to downtown planning.
1. Save Old West Hospital- can you say adaptive re-use? This art deco gem would make great medical related office space and possibly convenient downtown housing.
2. If a new hospital is needed, why not place it where the coliseum currently sits- the coliseum could be re-built in the Boulevard area - near the Diamond and the Arthur Ashe Center, creating a sports/entertainment district in what was formerly an industrial area.
3. Create a highly visible, Green, interpretive pathway that connects the Court End Neighborhood (Museum of the Confederacy, Richmond Valentine History Center, John Marshall House etc) with the new Visitor’s Center at Capitol Square and continues through Shockoe Bottom and to the Canal Walk and beyond. Right now there is a disconnect between all the historic sites around the Capitol. Visitors get glazed over when they come downtown.
good ideas you got there bill. i like the idea of the pathway.
I hope that as many people as possible will turn out tonight (July 20) and tomorrow for the charette at Plant Zero. Plus stop by the open studio during the week and see the presentation on the 26th.
The consultants, Dover-Kohl Town Planners, are among the best in the country for involving the public in hands-on, visual-based planning. It’s exciting and a great way for the public to be involved in creating a vision and plan for our city. Within Virginia, Dover-Kohl has done work in Lynchburg, Arlington and City of Fairfax.
I can’t tell you how exciting it is to have this process underway. My wife Alli Alligood and I are restoring a home in Church Hill and we love this city. I’ll get here full-time someday but for now I’m leading the The Coalition for Smarter Growth, which is headquartered out of DC and is a network of environmental and civic groups working in VA, DC and MD. We are big supporters of the process being used by the City of Richmond and of the work of Dover-Kohl and similar consultants. We are committed to revitalizing our cities and towns, investing in transit/ped/bike, using new urbanist community design, and reducing sprawl. The Partnership for Smarter Growth is working on the same issues for the Richmond region. Alli and I will be at the charette tonight as will Adele MacLean of PSG.