Third 2026 City Council study session.

We've got two items on our agenda today, the public realm vision plan, downtown commercial historic district, and then we'll uh we'll hear about our uh 2025 year and action plan and KPI update.

So with that, I am going to turn it over to Ms.

Irene Wubert to give us a preview and introduce our guest.

Council President, Council members, thank you.

Um I'm gonna kick it off.

I'll do a little bit of an intro, and then most of the presentation will be done by Sandy and who I'll introduce as we go along.

So can I stop you for a minute?

Uh actually, Minister's asked me to uh acknowledge that we are doing a lot of attempts to make our study sessions more informal.

Uh, two weeks ago we were in the corner over here, and uh I think uh the council members felt we were able to have it a robust and informal discussion.

We thought maybe that space was a little too uh kind of isolated, the public weren't able to see us directly.

So this we're trying this space out this time, and after our session, we invite members of the public, council members and staff to give us your feedback as we uh continue to work on making our uh sessions more accessible.

So continue.

Thank you.

All right, so um, we're gonna jump right in.

Um, and if there are any questions throughout, feel free to stop us.

I'm sure there's also time at the end as well.

Um, so kind of going back on January 22nd, 2024 was when the historic district was approved by council and not established the historic district after a number of years is really recognizing the downtown commercial core at the center of that.

Um, and here's like an updated map.

I think we've used some of the other ones, which um this one I think looks a little bit nicer and shows all of the contributing building as well as well as the non-contributing.

Um, and so this represents what the district is within the downtown area.

Um, and then this was kind of came out of that initial historic district, um, and really there was a lot of discussion about like what does it really look like in terms of implementation.

And so this was kind of that first piece that we really looked at.

Um, we coordinated with our partners as well as DMC to kind of establish like what are the key supports that are really needed for the district.

Um, obviously the one we're gonna talk about today in public realm, but just wanted to note a lot of these are ongoing, and not only are they being done by the city teammates but also with our partners.

Um, and through that process, um and this really came about as part of that public realm and identifying what does that vision look like.

We did an RFP process and we selected men collaborative in New History.

Um, Sandy is sitting to my right, and she's gonna be doing um most of the presentation, and she'll probably get into a little bit more, but wanted to also note that we also work with New History, um, and they are a more of a historic consultant as well.

So they work with um Mend and with the city teammates and with the public on developing this plan.

Um and really the intent was how do we develop that vision for the historic district and what does that really look like?

And that was a lot of that goal that we brought about.

So, what we're going to discuss today is really the project background, the community engagement, and all the work that was surrounded in that the vision plan, and we're gonna kind of walk through all those different steps and then allow us time for discussion.

Um just wanted to kind of note this plan as you'll see is kind of like this high-level vision plan.

Um, there's there's several notes in the plan that require additional work for implementation, so we will note that, but these are just high-level concepts, um, and these have also been coordinated and recognized as this is part of a larger planning efforts that are going on within the downtown area.

Um, and we had coordination among some of those as well.

So just wanted to make some of those notes to get provide that context as we dive in.

Um, and once again, you'll kind of see this is kind of those eight circles, but in a little bit different way.

The ones that are highlighted are really ones that the city teammates are leading in those in this area.

Um, as you kind of see some of the we've done some of the financial, the regulatory mobility.

Um, and this is really focused on that public realm aspect and what does that really look like.

Um, and with that, I'm gonna turn it to Cindy.

Thank you.

I'll let you know this.

Thank you.

Okay.

Council president, council members, thank you for having me at this table today.

My name is Sandy.

I'm a landscape architect, and I'm a founding partner at Men's Collaborative.

Um, as Irene mentioned, we are hired by the city with our team member New History.

Uh, we do urban planning, urban design, landscape architecture.

So we really brought that you know, framework of how you know successful public realms really work and new history's perspective and the stakeholders that we talked to throughout this process really brought that perspective of what makes this district really special from a historic and even modern use.

So when we're talking about the public realm, we're really talking about this space that is open, available free for everyone to use and enjoy things like elements that provide safety, like lighting and signage, ways to find your way around the district through wayfinding storytelling, sidewalks, bike lanes, gathering in open spaces, green spaces, saving and comfort features, the streets.

There's a lot to think about when we're thinking about our public realm spaces.

And when we set out starting this process, we really wanted to identify what we were working towards.

So we really wanted to have this comprehensive vision plan specific to this historic district that can really envision a future for the outdoor public spaces, and this is really just starting to provide that roadmap for implementation on you know how some of these spaces could be designed a little bit better to create a little bit more of a cohesive inclusive and well-designed area that really speaks to and really honors the history of the downtown commercial historic district.

We held a series of engagement events throughout the project process starting in June of last year.

We started with some focus group discussions.

We interviewed about 20 people there.

We also did door knocking within the district.

We held a couple um workshops with stakeholders that are you know business owners, build property owners, um, uh different downtown um organizations, so a couple workshops with folks, and we also had a pop-up at Thursday's downtown.