Title
Professional Services Agreement with Dover, Kohl and Partners for Designing Proposed Changes to the West University Avenue Corridor between 6th and 13th Streets, Developing a Proposed Special Area Plan for University Heights, and Developing Proposed Amendments to the College Park Special Area Plan
Explanation
On March 23, 1998, the City Commission approved Dover, Kohl and Partners, along with the planning firm of Jackson Gladding, as the top-ranked consultant team for recommending changes to the West University Avenue corridor between 6th and 13th Streets, in order to improve the economic vitality of the corridor by making it more attractive for businesses and more conducive to pedestrian activity. This section of University Avenue is the primary connector between downtown and the University. Its infrastructure and streetscape need to be updated and made more attractive in order to increase the vitality of the corridor.
This portion of University Avenue has the potential to become an economic development magnet by serving as one of the City's most vital and appealing retail, commercial and residential corridors with a pedestrian scale. It has a built-in market of University and Community College students nearby. An investment on the City's part is needed in order to upgrade sidewalks, streetscape, pedestrian lighting and other features that will provide the incentive for pedestrians and others to be attracted to this key location along University Avenue, and for the private sector to know that investments it may make along the corridor are justified by the City's own improvements to the public realm.
This work will involve traffic modeling to explore alternative configurations for the Avenue while continuing to handle automobile traffic adequately, possibly by sharing traffic with other corridors. These changes will offer a major opportunity to increase the quality of an important segment of the most important corridor in Gainesville's urb...
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