By: Deborah Johnson Wood
A five-day charrette laying the groundwork for millions in potential development along South Division Avenue brought together stakeholders from Wyoming, Kentwood and Gaines Township.
A team of urban designers, professors and students led business owners, property owners, residents and civic leaders through the process. The stakeholders voiced their vision for creating mixed-use neighborhoods, or “town centers,” around the Bus Rapid Transit stations planned near 54th and 60th streets. When completed in 2012, the BRT will run north along Division Avenue from 60th Street, looping past colleges and medical centers to The Rapid Central Station.
“Each group worked with an aerial photo of the area, and indicated what they’d like to see,” says Jay Hoekstra of the Grand Valley Metropolitan Council, one of the organizations heading up the process.
The design team took the ideas, created a preliminary plan and brought it back to the stakeholders for feedback on two separate evenings before arriving at a near-final plan.
The plan includes street layout and the BRT stations. It also determined proposed development standards — 15 building types, including mixed-use, apartments and live/work units, ranging from two to four stories tall. A landscaped median along Division and parallel parking with bulb-outs would help control traffic speeds.
Other ideas are to connect pedestrian/bicycle trails to Ideal Park, Kelloggsville Park and the M-6 Trail.
“Hopefully the future development will create jobs and excellent town centers where people can socialize and find entertainment,” Hoekstra says. “It will increase the tax base and not add to urban sprawl.”
Hoekstra expects the plan will be completed by year’s end. He says development could begin in the next three to five years and continue over the next 25 years.
Source: Jay Hoekstra, Grand Valley Metropolitan Council
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Deborah Johnson Wood is development news editor for Rapid Growth Media. She can be contacted at [email protected].
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