BLOOMINGTON — A master plan for the downtown streetscape should compliment the assets the area already has, planners told Bloomington residents during two forums Wednesday morning.
About a dozen people attended the morning forum and another followed in the afternoon at the Government Center in downtown Bloomington.
The master plan will recommend type and location of light fixtures and placement of plantings, benches, trash cans, bike racks and other fixtures for the downtown area generally bounded by Olive, Lee, Locust and Prairie streets. It will build upon work already performed on some of the 82 segments of street that are being examined, including improvements around the McLean County Museum of History and down North Main Street.
“I think we want to work with what you have,” said Jeff Martin, landscape architectural manager with Farnsworth Group, the firm hired to write the plan. He listed downtown’s historic architecture and overall heritage as an asset.
“We want to preserve that and a master plan gives us flexibility to do this,” he said.
Martha Burk, former co-owner of Main Gallery 404 and a member of the Downtown Bloomington Association design committee, said at the morning event she liked the work already done. She asked if the city could put electrical outlets near any trees to allow for holiday lights and turn the narrowest alleys, which can no longer handle trucks, into pedestrian walkways.
She and others in attendance noted a need for additional flowers, trees and bushes throughout the study area.
Martin said that can be an especially challenging aspect to downtown beautification because with the “nature of an urban environment, it’s just going to get walked on” unless plantings are elevated.
Joe Haney owns and is rehabilitating a building at 407-409 W. Washington St. “That is actually the entry point to downtown,” he said.
He said out-of-town visitors to U.S. Cellular Coliseum enter the city by taking Market Street to Lee Street until they hit Front Street. For that reason, Haney said the area around his property needs additional attention.
Jeff Woodard, marketing director at the McLean County Museum of History, agreed with other forum participants that the museum is a downtown “showpiece.” He supported the incorporation of tourism and the idea of preserving heritage.
He added that the museum hopes to rebrand its block into a “museum square” with additional landscaping to “give it more of a campus feel.”
Those unable to attend Wednesday’s forums are invited to weigh in on what they’d like downtown to look like by calling Assistant City Engineer Bob Yehl at 309-434-2225. Farnsworth is expected to complete the streetscape master plan report in early March.
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