The Future of Downtown Austin: A Visual Tour of the Downtown Austin Plan
June 01, 2010 22:58 Filed in: News
This evening, the City of Austin hosted a town hall
meeting to review the Downtown Austin Plan -- the
draft master plan for downtown Austin.
The purpose of the plan is to create a vision -- and policy framework -- for a vibrant downtown that becomes the region's core for work, play, and shopping, and living. The 90-page plan and 93-slide summary presentation (they are fascinating -- get them here) include hundreds of ideas to improve downtown Austin. The ideas range from zoning and historical protections to transit solutions to requirements for store glass transparency.
To provide a quick overview of the very rich content, we have assembled a visual walk through of some of the most interesting content:
(1) The red area is addressed in the plan for the core and waterfront district
(2) Even without active regulation, emerging land use patterns have effectively segmented downtown activity. In this diagram, pink represents the core employment zone; blue is commercial, entertainment and convention; and orange is residential (the dotted areas are pedestrian priority zones and the diagonal hatches represent sites with development opportunities)
(3) This heat map shows likelihood of redevelopment. Pink means that the site is pending redevelopment, green means near-term development is possible, yellow means long-term redevelopment is possible. Red means that development is unlikely. There are 62 properties > 1/4 block that can be redeveloped. These sites total 48 acres.
(4) This shows what downtown development looks like today
(5) This rendering shows what downtown might look like if the opportunity and potential development acres were developed to their full potential
(6) This map shows current and proposed historical districts where development should be limited and controlled
(7) This map shows the proposed core preservation zone for the warehouse district
(8) Finally, this rendering shows a proposed street layout for Congress Avenue which would add cosmetic improvements as well as a center turn lane and two lanes that would be shared by cars and rail.
While that's a quick overview, there is much more in the detailed Downtown Austin Plan which can be downloaded here.
The purpose of the plan is to create a vision -- and policy framework -- for a vibrant downtown that becomes the region's core for work, play, and shopping, and living. The 90-page plan and 93-slide summary presentation (they are fascinating -- get them here) include hundreds of ideas to improve downtown Austin. The ideas range from zoning and historical protections to transit solutions to requirements for store glass transparency.
To provide a quick overview of the very rich content, we have assembled a visual walk through of some of the most interesting content:
(1) The red area is addressed in the plan for the core and waterfront district
(2) Even without active regulation, emerging land use patterns have effectively segmented downtown activity. In this diagram, pink represents the core employment zone; blue is commercial, entertainment and convention; and orange is residential (the dotted areas are pedestrian priority zones and the diagonal hatches represent sites with development opportunities)
(3) This heat map shows likelihood of redevelopment. Pink means that the site is pending redevelopment, green means near-term development is possible, yellow means long-term redevelopment is possible. Red means that development is unlikely. There are 62 properties > 1/4 block that can be redeveloped. These sites total 48 acres.
(4) This shows what downtown development looks like today
(5) This rendering shows what downtown might look like if the opportunity and potential development acres were developed to their full potential
(6) This map shows current and proposed historical districts where development should be limited and controlled
(7) This map shows the proposed core preservation zone for the warehouse district
(8) Finally, this rendering shows a proposed street layout for Congress Avenue which would add cosmetic improvements as well as a center turn lane and two lanes that would be shared by cars and rail.
While that's a quick overview, there is much more in the detailed Downtown Austin Plan which can be downloaded here.