project: PALMETTO LIVABLE CENTERS INITIATIVE STUDY
date: 2008 – 2009
location: PALMETTO, GA
client: CITY OF PALMETTO
contact: TERRY TODD, CITY ADMINISTRATOR

Located about 30 miles southwest of Atlanta, Palmetto is a charming small town with lush vegetation, a wide array of historic homes and a small Main Street with significant potential.

Working with the Atlanta Regional Commission, The City of Palmetto and the citizens of Palmetto, Urban Collage completed an LCI study for the City’s Downtown area in December 2008. The plan outlines strategies for adding new historically-compatible mixed-use alongside the downtown’s old retail storefronts, includes market-based concepts for new housing within the downtown, identifies areas for new open space throughout the study area and provides a circulation framework of bike lanes, trails and pedestrian amenities connecting future development.
The study products also address connectivity issues, including street-specific recommendations for potential streetscape improvements, concepts for reconfiguring existing streets, the addition of new streets, and strategies for improving connections between either side of the city’s historic railroad corridor.

As the city begins to enact policies to implement the LCI plan, Palmetto is now poised to set a precedent for smart-growth policies and historic preservation initiatives in the face of growth pressures common to much of Metro Atlanta.

project: NORCROSS DOWNTOWN DEVELOPMENT PLAN
date: 2006
location: NORCROSS, GA
client: CITY OF NORCROSS / DOWNTOWN DEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY
contact: SKIP NAU, CHAIR OF THE NORCROSS DDA

Historic Downtown Norcross was one of the jewels of Gwinnett County. Its “main street” charm created an identity and economic engine for the city. Like any historic downtown, however, the City faced the typical balancing act of trying to maintain its unique identity while both accommodating and encouraging new, quality growth. Recent developments on the fringe of downtown demonstrated an increasingly viable market, particularly for new, high quality residential development. The challenge became how to foster that new market without jeopardizing historic resources and the health of the existing commercial core. The City and its Development Authority had been very proactive in acquiring properties that would help guide redevelopment. They were ready to focus on the next steps.

The Strategic Development Plan grew out of work done by a preceding LCI plan, and used progressive urban design principles combined with rigorous client involvement and additional public input to update the community vision. The Strategic Development Plan became a tool for the City of Norcross and the Downtown Development Authority (DDA) to be proactive partners in the future development and on-going revitalization of Downtown. The Plan provided a set of clear benchmarks – design and programmatic – with which Norcross evaluated future private-sector development activity. Indeed, one project that came out of the Plan – the remaking of the Lillian Webb Ballfield into a greenspace centerpiece surrounded by mixed-use development – broke ground barely a year later.