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Revitalization Through Maryland Smart Growth and Preservation
Session: Revitalization Through Maryland Smart Growth and Preservation March 31, 10:15 AM Clarence Eng, AICP Too often economic development and historic preservation find themselves in competition. In Frederick and Westminster, Maryland, community-visioning processes resulted each in downtown revitalization plans that link these competing interests. The Plans stressed protecting and rehabilitating significant contributing historic structures as part of an overall economic development, historic preservation and heritage tourism strategy. By enhancing significant historic structures while providing for new construction, the City would help reinforce its authentic heritage tourism opportunities as a destination attraction and source of community identity and pride and help define a downtown core strengthened by residential and business development, and with a vibrant center for events, entertainment, and festivals with improved public spaces, transportation, parking, and appropriate architecture. Revitalization Through Maryland Smart Growth & Preservation Session DescriptionThe Cities of Frederick and Westminster, Maryland, have had long traditions of relying upon their Historic Downtown for commerce, entertainment, cultural attractions and the community identity. While their downtowns were thriving, the City needed to determine the fate of a key downtown area, where a gateway road connected to the Interstate or highway, and how to balance opposing preservation and economic development forces. The focus was to sustain the energy and capitalize on the potential of the gateway corridor with a dynamic, flexible, far-sighted, yet realistic master plan, and by capturing the opportunity to tie together the historic community with existing and planned redevelopment, public space, and transportation projects through an insightful citizen input process. In Frederick, the process resulted in numerous unsolicited private sector development proposals for key area sites during the plan process and before final plan adoption. In Westminster, the State DOT, Office of Smart Growth and City worked together to develop a strategy and physical plan that built upon a common vision. The Plans were developed through an intensive public review and community input process, including an intensive 4-day design charrette with hundreds of citizens, stakeholders, public agencies and concerned parties, to review findings, approve recommendations, and solicit feedback. Key workshops helped garner consensus and compromises. As part of the area planning process, the planning team developed a series of long-term strategic goals, creating a vision upon which to focus the community’s energy and resources, and short-term action items. The Plans stressed protecting and rehabilitating significant contributing historic structures as part of an overall economic development, historic preservation and heritage tourism strategy. By enhancing significant historic structures while providing for new construction, the City would help reinforce its authentic heritage tourism opportunities as a destination attraction and source of community identity and pride and help define a downtown core strengthened by residential and business development, and with a vibrant center for events, entertainment, and festivals with improved public spaces, transportation, parking, and appropriate architecture. Author and Copyright Information Copyright 2003 by author Clarence Eng, AICP Design Collective, Inc. |