A group of about 25 people involved with uptown businesses gave their feedback to town staff and consultants preparing the Uptowne Area Redevelopment Plan on Dec. 11 at the Olds Elks Hall.
The event gave attendees the chance to see work that has already been done on redeveloping the uptown area and gave them the opportunity to comment and make suggestions on what they would like to see in terms of various design elements such as different styles of concrete for sidewalks, trash cans, light posts, benches, bike racks and planters. Those in attendance also heard about plans for pedestrian safety, the walkability of the uptown area and parking.
A previous version of the plan was presented to the public in February.
“Some of these design elements might be (incorporated) well into the future. The intention at the end of all of this is to take this project right to construction,” said Kathryn Guenther, a planner with Stantec Architecture, the consulting firm working on the plan for the town.
During the session, Paul Gustafson, owner of Shoppers Drug Mart, said in an interview he sees several elements in the plan that he likes.
“I think the focus on pedestrian safety is phenomenal. I can only speak to our experience, but the freeway that sort of exists in front of the medical clinic at this point as people speed up to get to the highway, I'm surprised that somebody hasn't been hit there already. There's (also) a good balance between parking preservation and beautification. I think it's going to be a really attractive area for people to come to and it will certainly help redevelop some businesses and promote some economic growth,” he said.
Mike Fix, owner of Gotcha Jeans, said he thought the chance to give feedback on design choices such as sidewalks, trash cans, light posts and other design elements was good.
“I think the plan's good. I think it still needs some fine-tuning (but) it's getting there,” he said, adding the final result will be an improved uptown. “I think it will be more pedestrian friendly and I think it will look a lot fresher.”
Larry Wright, the Town of Olds' strategy and technology officer, said the town is aiming to carry out redevelopment work in the uptown area at the same time as water and wastewater lines are replaced in the 50 Avenue corridor so that the town isn't disrupting businesses twice.
“We've seen so many examples of communities that they do the water and sewer and really don't do the surface (improvements), and then they come back and they have to spend extra money and redo parts. We're trying to do this part, because we think it's a very valuable piece of Olds, (while minimizing) costs,” he said.
Stantec will now take the feedback from the Dec. 11 meeting and present it to the town for implementation. Wright said the town would like to include improvements from 50 Street south to 52 Street on 50 Avenue in 2014 if Municipal Sustainability Initiative funding from the provincial government allows. MSI funding allows municipalities to fund infrastructure improvements.
Depending on what design elements business owners would like to see, Wright said the town may consult with owners in the future about a levy against them to pay for some of those design elements.
