Reprinted with permission of the Daily Hampshire Gazette. All rights reserved.

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A long-term look at city's design

Students focus on Northampton as multiple centers

By CHAD CAIN
Staff Writer

 

Friday, September 12, 2008

NORTHAMPTON - After spending three days meeting with about 200 people, six graduate students from the University of Notre Dame School of Architecture hunkered down Wednesday afternoon to begin sketching out what urban design might look like if enacted at various locations throughout Paradise City.

The students are here at the behest of a grassroots community organization called the Northampton Design Forum. They spent the first part of a weeklong design studio that ends Saturday meeting with city officials, contractors, architects, residents and others interested in developing solutions to long-term planning issues facing the city.

Much of the focus this week is on the concept of urban design, an alternative to sprawl that involves creating a mix of retail, housing, and other uses within a neighborhood. Philip Bess, the Notre Dame professor leading the class, describes these areas as "comfortable walking distances" of a half-mile square from edge to edge.

"We want to think about where it would be possible to put in a mix of uses in multiple centers throughout Northampton," said Bess.

Design Northampton Week, as the event has been dubbed, was created to give residents a tutorial in design and planning issues that the city will face in the next 50 to 100 years, as well as allow them the opportunity to participate in coming up with solutions to address these issues. It also gives the students a hands-on experience to put concepts into practice.

Organizers said this process takes the city's recently adopted Sustainable Northampton Plan a step further by showing visually what this future might look like. The students are expected to present drawings that depict their recommendations. None of their suggestions will be binding for city officials.

The students are studying about 10 main areas, including Main Street downtown, the Pleasant Street gateway into downtown, Florence center, the former Northampton State Hospital grounds, the Northampton Industrial Park, lower and upper King Street, West Street, the Barrett Street area west of King Street, the Bay State neighborhood and Hampshire and Florence Heights.

Students will analyze each of these areas in detail, taking into account their history, current use, and vision for the future. They'll then present drawings and recommendations at a final session Saturday, from 4 to 6 p.m., at the Northampton Senior Center, 67 Conz St.

The students will take feedback from Saturday's presentation and continue to work on their ideas throughout the semester before returning to Northampton in December to make an official final presentation.

"We will present all of the drawings that are positive directions we'll take the rest of the semester," said Aaron Helfand, a Leeds native and one of the six students in the class.

One element of urban design is the idea of "compact growth," in which homes, businesses and other daily activities are clustered in one area, Bess said at a Wednesday afternoon presentation. This form of development was prevalent for much of Northampton's history, as evidenced by a physical growth map presented by the students this week.

Prior to 1950, the city's population grew at a steady clip, but because residents employed the compact-growth idea, its neighborhoods remained concentrated in a fairly small land area. After 1950, however, the growth in building mass doubled despite a much slower growth in population.

"This is part of the post-1945 sprawl driven by automobile-centered development," Bess said. "The premise of our study is that compact growth is a much more environmentally sustainable idea."

The most logical place to put compact growth in practice is at intersections of major streets that would serve as the center of neighborhoods, Bess said.

The students spent most of Wednesday focusing on plans for downtown, Pleasant Street and Florence center.

One tentative idea downtown involved converting many of the parking lots into public spaces for events such as farmers markets, parks and other uses. The designers realize they can't eliminate parking, and instead will likely propose a multi-use parking garage. These garages typically include restaurants and other retail shops on the ground floor with three or four levels of parking above.

"So it doesn't look like an ugly garage," said Helfand.

The Pleasant Street plan will focus on three areas, including the Pleasant-Conz intersection as the start of the gateway into downtown. They'll also draw up plans to "continue the character of Main Street" along the entire stretch of Pleasant to Interstate 91, instead of just a small stretch closest to Main.

"We want it to feel like you are in Northampton when you come off the freeway," said Josh Eckert.

The students said the design studio is shaping up to be a valuable real-world learning experience. Instead of focusing only on design concepts, they've been thrust into real-world situations where politics, economics and individual ideas about city planning collide.

"This sort of design projects depend on public input," Helfand said. "The response we've gotten has been tremendous."

Some 200 people have attended all or some of the workshops this week.

Bess was careful to not take a position on specific projects already in the works, despite questions from residents about the proposed Hilton Garden Inn downtown and other proposals such as Village Hill Northampton.

"It's our intention not to undermine projects in the works, but if we see long-term possibilities to an area, we will point them out," he said.

He added, "All of our proposals are always a recommendation."