The City of Denton has spent $200K on consultants to help think about our downtown area.  Their plans are nearly in place and they unveiled some of them to the public recently.  Read about what they will soon recommend to the city – the good, the controversial, and some stones still left unturned.

Kevin Roden – 03.06.10

My wife and I strolled our toddler daughter from our home to the square this afternoon to buy some shoes and bread.  As is typical of these walks, we ran into a few folks we know, spent time conversing, and perused a few shops, all while attaining our goals.  I was struck, as I often am, at the amount of people organically gathering on the courthouse lawn and on the streets surrounding it.  We are fortunate to have such a sense of place in our midst, but we should also be mindful of its fragility.  There are two ways this can be undone: either by under-planning, whereby the possibility exists for bulldozers to tear down great things (see Fry Street) and bad development goes up, or by over-planning, whereby outside “consultants” come in and attempt to inauthentically fabricate a sense of place overnight.  Let us hope the current initiative finds the via media…

Consultants from Jacobs Engineering, Inc. and Townscape were on hand on at the Denton Civic Center on the evening of March 4 to unveil what seems to be close to their final proposal which will be submitted to the city in the coming months.  Denton Record Chronicle’s Lowell Brown does a good job hitting the highlights of the plan here.  The time for thinking through this area is ripe now that plans are in place for DCTA’s A-Train to connect downtown Denton with Dallas, thus potentially attracting a wave of interested developers in the area.  Without thinking ahead on a variety of issues relating to development, quality of life, traffic, economic development, and walkability, what could be smart, creative growth could very easily descend into a free-for-all at the hands of aesthetically-deprived former football players-turned-developers.

Want a good example of bad planning?  Take for instance the newly constructed town home apartments lining the corner of Industrial and Mulberry, just East of the Square.  Facing one of the most thriving portions of the downtown area (home to Dan’s Silverleaf, Rooster’s, and Fuzzy’s Tacos) and situated just off the main corridor connecting the A-train station and downtown, this lot of land once had potential.  It’s setback, orientation of garage doors, and weak attempt at copping an old style makes it an architectural stranger in its own neighborhood.  Although the previously adopted Denton Downtown Master Plan prescribed projects like this to be mixed-use (making room for first floor retail), doors were opened by the city to make room for this project without it.

Here are some topics of interest to keep an eye on as this proposal moves forward:

— NEW DEVELOPMENT – Townscape is proposing a new type of development code that should at once create an easier path for developers and provide more assurance of quality projects.  Dennis Wilson, consultant from Townscape, had some thoughtful comments on the matter.  Struck by his presentation remarks about the importance of “tripartite” buildings (with a clear lower level, middle, and upper story), I briefly bantered with him on the side about the connection between this theory and Plato’s theory of the tripartite soul.  His ability to intelligently discuss this subject gives me confidence in his advice to the city.  But the question remains: can the city hold firm on encouraging truly great development?  Or will the “good enough” pass through because the city’s planners fear more the opinion of developers than they do the desire of the citizens?

— PRESERVATION - All the talk of new development should give us pause… there’s not much open space in the downtown area, so what do they think needs to go away in order to make room for all these supposed new building projects?  Even the worn down little buildings on side streets have a wealth of character and possibility worth preserving and reinvigorating.  As interest in this area increases, what plans will the city put in place to protect its historical resources and avoid another Fry Street debacle?  Hypothetically and legally, many of these buildings that we love could be torn down at the whim of their owners.

— BIKING, WALKING, and CARS – With the new train coming through, a comprehensive bus system, an increased interest among the younger population in walking and biking, and even Denton’s new pedicap taxi service, the plan should give deference to car-less transportation.  But the biggest controversy of the night revolved around the issue of bike lanes.  Instead of making room for designated bike paths on Hickory and Oak, the plan called for out-of-the-way redirected bike routes in hopes of encouraging bike traffic away from the central corridors of downtown.  Denton’s biking constituency is growing and becoming increasingly influential, so I suspect this is not the end of the story.  Check out Bike Denton’s earlier blog on these matters and keep an eye on them for more discussion on this topic.

— CONNECTION TO ADJACENT NEIGHBORHOODS – Little has been said about the importance of existing neighborhoods in the areas immediately surround the square.  Think of the neighborhood around Stroud Street between Elm and Carroll, just Southwest of the square – or the Elm/Locust neighborhoods and businesses just North of the square – or the Austin/Oakland/Texas Street area surrounding the much talked about Quakertown Park area… These are neighborhoods with enormous potential due to their historical charm, their appeal to a younger demographic, and their walkability to the downtown area.  Plans that incentivize preservation and revitalization of these neighborhoods will only serve to enhance the overall feel of the downtown area and provide a built in group of neighbors to frequent this area.  Some tough decisions will need to be made on how to encourage landlords to loosen their grip on these properties and make way for more owner occupied homes in these areas.

One of the last comments of the night came from downtown dweller Jacqueline Foertsch, Literature Professor at UNT.  Among other things she asked why we look to cities such as McKinney as our benchmark when we ought to be raising our sights and aiming to be a world-class city such as Athens or Rome.  Perhaps today’s city planners should be required to read what she’s reading.  Perhaps a little less planning textbooks and a little more Shakespeare can awaken our ambitions and provoke such imagination.  Thanks Professor Foertsch for daring us to dream a bit…

Check here for all the latest on the Downtown Implementation Plan.