Public Vetting of Downtown Master Plan Ideas Set for April 25th

Here are some of the high points of the Downtown Master Plan thus far. UGA landscape architecture professor Jack Crowley outlined them to the board of the Athens Downtown Development Authority Tuesday afternoon:

*A greenway along Jackson Street connecting downtown to Lay Park and the Lyndon House

*A 17-feet wide commuting cooridor along the abandoned Georgia Railroad bed, including the restored/rebuilt Murmur Trestle 

*A traffic circle and cross walk at Dougherty and Thomas streets

*A median on Oconee Street

And to fund the $150 million in improvements, Crowley urged the board to recommend that the ACC Commission create a tax allocation district, or TAD, for the area of town that includes Poplar over to Oconee Street on one side, to the river on the other and running up to Dougherty. Any susequent development in that area will help support the improvements.

At the April 25th meeting, Crowley said, participants will be able to "vote" on the proposals just as they did at the initial meeting last fall. This time, people will be seeing ideas sketched out.