The Downtown Durango Vision and Strategic Plan: How it began…

A little grain of sand in an oyster stimulates growth of a pearl… Gather a few of those presumably irritating sand granules in an oyster bed, and a proverbial treasure results.

For Durango’s Historic Downtown, it all began with the need for new sidewalks. City council had approved the two-year program, and staff engineers and planners were moving ahead to launch the construction in late summer 2004. The plan was introduced on a chilly February morning to a meeting of merchants and stakeholders.

To at least one in the gathering – Tim Wheeler, owner of Durango Coffee Company – initiating a massive sidewalk construction program independent of an overall plan for downtown redevelopment, lacked foresight and seemed, to put it bluntly, irresponsible. A consensus agreed.

At virtually the same time, by pure coincidence and unrelated to the aforementioned, representatives from the La Plata Economic Development Action Partnership (LEAD), led by then Bank of Colorado president Shawn Osthoff and downtown business and property owner Phil Bryson, met with city management staff to urge pro-active development of a comprehensive strategic plan that would help ensure the economic viability of the Historic Downtown as the city continued to expand.

The community had spoken, and these sometimes disparate voices banded together, with representation from the City, to form the Downtown Durango Partnership (DDP). This public-private coalition voluntarily took on the responsibility for, in essence, shepherding the process of research and development, and ultimate approval by City Council, of what was christened the Downtown Durango Vision and Strategic Plan. It would be a series of recommendations for projects that would build on the downtown’s diverse, mixed-use character and reinforce the downtown as the “heart” of the community, embodying its identity, values and energy.

Broad-based input from as many stakeholders and interested parties as possible was deemed as key to the success of the plan’s development. LEAD, DDP and the City hosted a series of public meetings which drew hundreds of interested citizens. Input led to delineation of key areas of concern: Community Facilities and Land Use; Access and Circulation; Housing, Infill, Mixed Use; Riverfront/Camino del Rio Corridor; Public Space and Urban Design; and Business Planning. These ultimately became the Focus Group topics.

Throughout the summer, these professionally-facilitated Focus Groups met, researched, debated and developed comprehensive reports filled with practical solutions to what the citizenry felt were important issues – as well as wishes, hopes and dreams for the downtown. Minutes were taken at each meeting and made available on the web, inviting further input from the community. The information gathered was presented to a team of consultants hired by the City - Denver-based Civitas Inc., with Fehr & Peers and Economic & Planning Systems supporting.

Charettes were held, as well as additional, well-attended public meetings, and in September 2005, a report for a 20-year vision for what is known as the Central Business District (CBD), boarded on the north, west and south by the Animas River, and the alley east of E. Second Ave. was presented to the community.

Sections of the plan were divided among “Streets, Streetscape and Urban Design,” “Parks and Trails,” “Parking and Transit,” “Policies and Regulations,” and “Organization,” and covered a plethora of projects ranging in price, but ultimately totaling nearly $29 million.

The plan was adopted by the City Council in December 2005. Now community leaders and the City are prioritizing these projects. The DDP has merged with the Durango Business Improvement District to help in this endeavor, preparing a long-range business plan for fiscal responsibility, as well as to ensure implementation of the plan. As each “piece” of the vision comes to the forefront, new studies, public meetings, and other communication tools, will be organized to keep the public “in the loop” and involved in the process of sustaining Durango’s Historic Downtown – the heartbeat of our community.

– Indiana Reed