A few weeks after roughly 200 Chattanoogans met at Miller Plaza to meet with urban planners to begin the public process of determining the future of our downtown’s Civic Center District, the Chattanooga Design Studio is inviting the community to a large public charrette to gather public opinion to ensure future development is consistent with local preferences.
The Civic Center Plan will chart the future course of the downtown area bounded north-south by 5th St. and 13th Street and east-west by Highway 27 and Houston Street. Notable landmarks within the Civic Center District include the TVA campus, Dome Building, Miller Park, EPB Building, Tivoli Theatre, and West Village.
The Civic Center Plan public charrette will be held at the Downtown Library (1001 Broad Street) on Aug. 12, from 4 to 6 p.m. Local leaders will speak briefly at 4 p.m. about the importance of community planning and why residents should share their opinions with the design team.
Over the next five months, the Chattanooga Design Studio will work with local residents and industry experts to produce the Civic Center District Plan, which will serve as the unified vision for the district. The plan will include a wide range of urban design recommendations and both long-term and short-term opportunities for key sites and blocks within the District.
“Downtown Chattanooga is the symbolic, cultural, and business center of our great city,” said Chattanooga Mayor Tim Kelly. “This public input session – which I encourage everyone to attend – is a wonderful opportunity for the community to help determine what Chattanooga looks like for future generations.”
“I applaud the Chattanooga Design Studio for engaging Hamilton County citizens to speak into the reimagination of our downtown,” said Hamilton County Mayor Weston Wamp. “This is an opportunity for the members of our community to directly contribute to shaping the downtown we will leave to our children and grandchildren.”
“The Chattanooga Design Studio exists to ensure urban development happens intentionally so our city can grow in a sustainable, efficient, and inclusive way,” said Eric Myers, executive director of the Chattanooga Design Studio. “We’re grateful to everyone who has shared their opinion thus far in this process and are encouraged by the large amount of public interest we continue to see in this plan.”
After this large public charrette, the next step in creating the plan will be to compile public input, create a “work in progress” plan, and host another public event in September so the community can provide reactions and input to that preliminary plan. The final plan will be released this fall.
This work is being driven by an eleven-person steering committee and an engaged consultant team composed of Sasaki, a global integrated design firm; Tinker Ma, a local architecture, interior design and planning firm; Erika Roberts, a local creative strategist and community healer; and James Lima Planning + Development, an urban economic strategist firm.