Our strengths were all built upon almost two decades of being immersed in communities of all sizes while preparing comprehensive plans.

During this experience, we began to learn that there was a huge disconnect between the academicians that pollute our planning profession with acronyms and the average Joe in Anywhere, America.  In meetings large and small, to learning big things from people we never met in public forums emerged a level of understanding in planning that only our forefathers knew.  And that was planning was people, period!

We learned that implementing our plans wouldn’t occur through the use of fancy acronyms only the planning professionals could understand and not Joe. Promoting good growth or community change, we eventually learned, wouldn’t be due to zoning or fancy strategies like TND, performance zoning, form-based zoning, or any other “du jour” methods introduced into our professional on an almost daily basis.

The success of plans would be derived only if people understood the plans we wrote.  So we’ve learned to take baby steps in every community we’re lucky to work in.  If the people get it, we let ‘em have it.  If they don’t, we give them what they need most: A Plan they can understand.

The economic and social transformation that’s occurred over the last forty years has turned many once thriving downtowns into underutilized and unappreciated places.

But they don’t need to be.  When residents ask us why their downtowns are not thriving, we often have to bite our lips because we don’t carry mirrors.

There are many challenges in redeveloping and transforming a downtown back into the social and thriving place it once was. Doing so requires a thoughtful and engaging process that requires dispelling half-truths, tactfully rallying local resources, and wholeheartedly reiterating the importance to the community on the benefits of shopping and investing resources in their downtowns.

When coupled with our unique visioning, design and place making methods we employ, we’ve been able to help communities revitalize their downtowns into engaging and economically-diverse places.

The process of growth, development and redevelopment often requires that a “review of the environment” be done to minimize the many direct or indirect effects the project(s) may have on the environment. In most cases, if the project is federally-funded, an environmental review is required, with the level and type of the review determined by the project’s intensity and type.

We are very familiar with preparing environmental documents for state and federal agencies in conjunction with economic development, planning, historic preservation, or transportation-related projects.