ESTEVAN - The Estevan downtown revitalization planning by George Harris Collaborative is in its final phase, and the current city centre was hard to recognize in a video introduced during the latest engagement session.
George Harris Collaborative’s team showcased a suggested virtual model of the downtown, created out of what people in the community said they wanted to see for the future of the Energy City.
The third and last community engagement session, offering a plan review and critique, took place at the Estevan Leisure Centre during the City-Wide Registration on April 5.
George Harris Collaborative took suggestions made by Estevan residents and turned them into a new vision of the revitalized downtown. The precise video model, which took 80 hours to render, can be found at the bottom of this story.
A drop-by event offered the community a chance to preview the proposed project.
In the model, Estevan’s downtown is filled with trees and flowers. Increased pedestrian safety is thought through and the current curb parking is changed to angle parking. The model visualizes downtown's potential to offer many different seating and eating areas, created alongside restaurants and in proposed parks. The model also demonstrates an improved infrastructure with contemporary waste collection containers, planters, bicycle parking, streetlights, benches, etc. Streets look attractive and are turned into active public spaces, however, the historic downtown is preserved, and just framed by innovations.
The proposed style for the public space downtown is described as fresh, energetic and classical with a nod to local history. Black is used in furniture. The paving is kept neutral to allow the heritage buildings, predominantly clad in brick, to stand out. High energy lighting is also suggested to reflect the Energy City component.
The model is a concept and was created to give people a visual idea of what can be done, what it would look like and what kind of outcomes it may have for the city and the community. Different components such as various-sized parks, for example, are not set in stone or locked in particular spaces, but they are built into the model to show where they could go and how they may look.
Harris said Estevan's downtown underground infrastructure is also due for renewal, so now would be a perfect time to implement any revitalization ideas, as everything will need to be redone in the near future. He added that the current model would make Estevan look way better than Moose Jaw.
The engagement event also allowed the public to learn about some development strategies, suggested by the company.
Using the requests from the community, the company developed some strategic suggestions aimed at meeting different needs of people and bringing life to downtown. They address such issues as developing connections between neighbourhoods and connecting downtown to the rest of the city, providing infrastructure and support for programming and events, developing different districts within downtown, creating various open spaces, streetscaping, and also updating plans and policies to continue to second on with the governance.
The meeting also gave the public the last chance to add to the downtown future vision. Now residents have a few more days to give their feedback.
The survey, available through QR code, will run until mid-April, and the final suggestions will be forwarded to the city council before the end of the month alongside all other results of the research, including a video model of revitalized downtown for further decisions and actions.
