City of Elizabethtown Director of Planning and Development Aaron Hawkins told the Elizabethtown City Council last week that the Downtown Master Plan, which the planning department has been developing over the last year, consists of a developmental toolkit and an action plan which features three major projects: redesigning the downtown Public Square, a flex street on South Main Street to connect the new city hall complex to the Public Square, and a boardwalk area for Valley Creek.
Hawkins said the plan eliminates the 27 parking spaces currently in the Public Square, which combined with converting the traffic pattern to a roundabout increases safety and increases pedestrian activity.
“It gives, on all four quadrants of our square, the ability to not only add public space and pedestrian space, but also add things like art quadrants or sculptures or fountains or landscaping,” Hawkins said. “Things to beautify the square, not only to make it safer for pedestrians to walk throughout the businesses and around the square, but also to just make it more enjoyable in general.”
The city has plans for a new city hall complex between South Main Street and Mulberry Street, and the plan includes features to temporarily close South Main Street for city events, which allows city events to take place without closing Dixie Avenue to traffic. The flex street keeps the new City Hall connected to the downtown area.
Hawkins said the Valley Creek boardwalk gives the city a water feature that is a common feature to downtown areas.
“The concept and the thought is to create a boardwalk of sorts along Valley Creek that not only has an active portion down below right off the creek where you can funnel hikers and bikers and walkers through, but also a second tier on the back sides of buildings that creates more of a pedestrian plaza type area where the businesses can utilize that to have store fronts along the boardwalk on the creek, not just store fronts on the road,” Hawkins said.
The plan will be submitted to the city’s Planning Commission and the City Council for adoption. More information on the plan is available on the city’s website.
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