Below are 23 concepts for current (or future) property owners in downtown Harrisonburg to consider as they restore or revitalize downtown properties.
These values are from the vision book entitled "
urban values & vision for downtown harrisonburg" produced by
Eugene Stoltzfus Architects for the City of
Harrisonburg Downtown Renaissance.
- Build density within the City and maintain openness in the County.
- Use building position and massing to define urban place at a public scale.
- Use secondary building characteristics to tune-up how buildings relate to and form place at a public scale.
- Use urban accessory elements to tune-up the subtleties of access and definition of urban spaces.
- Use pedestrian-scale pavers for areas that are designed for and frequented by pedestrians.
- Use building transparency to relate inside to outside.
- Encourage mixed-use development throughout the city.
- Encourage sidewalk cafés.
- Develop a strategic parking plan.
- liminate large surface parking lots, and provide structured parking decks of 4 to 6 stories.
- Incorporate mixed-use into the sides of parking decks which front on streets.
- Encourage growth of trees in the city.
- Coordinate tree management and signage.
- Uncover and open up Black's Run where possible.
- Provide more park land in the downtown.
- Support individual low-tech transport such as walking, bicycles, and scooters.
- Develop good local public transport.
- Facilitate an appropriate balance between pedestrian and car movement.
- Engineer the downtown traffic plan to enhance downtown as a destination.
- Support green design.
- Cultivate the value that we are building a city for the long term.
- Inform private developers about the urban values the city considers important.
- Maintain in public places, visible displays of Harrisonburg's urban values.
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