Master plan draft to be previewed Wednesday
Published 10:02 am Tuesday, August 26, 2014
Austin is getting a look this week at the combined input residents gave on the city’s downtown.
Consultants CR Planning and SEH will present a draft of the latest downtown master plan for the city’s central business district at two meetings Wednesday.
“They’ve compiled all that information into a draft, a straw man, as they call it,” Public Works Director Steven Lang said.
Consultants gathered information on Austin’s downtown area during a visit last month, which also included input from the downtown master plan committee, area organizations and downtown businesses among others.
Those same groups will hear a presentation from CR Planning Wednesday and offer input on the straw man draft of Austin’s downtown master plan.
Consultants will take that input to create a final draft, which Lang said would be released in late September or early October.
City officials say downtown master plans are redone whenever unexpected major projects, such as Vision 2020 initiatives like the Downtown Utilities Plant Committee, or the Spam Museum relocation, take place.
The last downtown master plan was done in 2005, to accommodate the city’s Main Street Project initiative.