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Portland-based urban planner John Fregonese’s name should ring a bell — he’s the guy behind the Forward Dallas comprehensive plan, now in effect four years last June. Saw his name again today in the USA Today: Waco’s done hired him too to create a plan “that includes mixed retail and residential downtown development, green construction and high-density, ‘walkable’ communities that discourage driving.” Well, sure, why not? It’s all the rage.
That thing’s a monster — 138 pages and counting known as Imagine Waco: A Plan for Greater Downtown, the most recent version of which just went up at the end of last week. Reports USA Today, hundreds of folks have attended public meetings since the July ’09 kickoff, and …
The consensus: develop the banks of the Brazos River, attract the young and empty-nesters from Baylor University’s growing student body and faculty, and highlight tourist attractions (Waco Mammoth Site archeological dig, Dr Pepper Museum and replica of the drugstore where the soft drink was invented, an 1870 suspension bridge over the Brazos, Texas Ranger Hall of Fame & Museum).
Incidentally, I was in Waco two weeks ago. Can’t believe I spent four years driving back and forth between here and Austin and managed to miss Cupp’s.
