Downtown Revitalization

The heart of any community is its downtown, and we are expert in working with communities to bring new life to underperforming town and city centers.  We understand the physical design imperatives of valuable, walkable places and the economic imperatives of the rapidly evolving retail industry, and help our clients craft practical plans to repair frayed public spaces, reform transportation and parking systems, and target new investment in infill development that meets the current economy and future trends. 

Our downtown plan experience spans the revitalization of historic downtowns and the transformation of greyfield areas to new town centers; heart transplants, as it were, for communities that never had a downtown but always wanted one.  For every downtown plan, key elements of our process include incisive background analysis, intensive stakeholder engagement and community outreach, re-envisioning the possiblities for street networks and public spaces, matching locally calibrated infill development types to economic realities, and crafting implementation strategies that coordinate a program of phased public improvements with private reinvestment.