You've Come a Long Way Baby: Downtown West Palm Beach

Melissa Hege, AICP, LEED AP of South Florida-based Melissa Hege City Planning LLC. emphasizes how a distinctive and unique waterfront plaza has helped reshape Downtown West Palm Beach.

And with the success of the plaza and its market, something interesting happened. The City expanded the zone outside of the plaza for walking only. Street closures on market days, help create a larger area for pedestrians to stroll. Again, it’s not fancy or expensive. Temporary barricades which can be easily moved, (unlike their concrete relatives which require heavy machinery) and plastic bollards restrict car traffic during the event. The solution is simple and effective.

And even more interesting (and the point of this blog) were the spin-off activities the grew from the market’s success.

Antique Market: First is the Antiques Market on a completely separate street from the Green Market. It’s a separate and complimentary event which fuels the community’s desire for more cool stuff. And this one is right in the street.

Bicycle Track: Now as the downtown has become more popular, more people are ditching their cars for bicycles. And with little accommodations for bicycle travel, this agile little city converted half of their waterfront boulevard into a protected bicycle track.

This is amazing to me. Rather than construct a special bike lane, the city took a relatively low traffic roadway and has adapted it for bikes. The existing median creates a really safe and comfortable barrier between the oncoming traffic and the bikes and it’s all done at a very low cost with a super fast turn around.

During market day, this bicycle tent was set up at the end of the bicycle track and next to a bike share station.

And the city is committed to this new biking infrastructure. Check out the permanent bike repair station for the unfortunate biker with the flat tire! And of course, there are plenty of bike racks.

And water stations. When’s the last time you saw a water fountain in Miami?

Seating: Temporary seating across from the plaza expands the area out towards the water for eating and relaxing.

And these people created their own seating on the seawall. It’s a quiet and peaceful place to enjoy lunch.

Temporary Installations: And the icing on the cake is this fun, artsy miniature golf put put. Still under construction when I took this photo, what a great way to add even more recreational activities to the downtown. I love the color and and whimsy of this design.

And my favorite, this fun play on Monopoly. I felt like I was in the game! Now any city that can incorporate these humorous designs into their landscape is doing something right. They are responding to their community’s needs for fun and stimulating activities that they may never have imagined when their plan was first being designed. And that’s what makes a great plan!</div>

Article originally posted by Melissa Hege, AICP at www.Melissahege.com.

Melissa Hege, AICP, LEED AP, practices planning and urban design in one of the Country’s most envied and envious iconic cities—the Republic of Miami. For more than a decade, she has enjoyed the juxtaposition of the region’s beauty and dysfunction, and continues to learn from it daily. Educated at the University of Pennsylvania and Brandeis University, her portfolio includes award winning plans which translate design based solutions into practical applications.

In her current practice, Melissa Hege City Planning, she straddles the roles of planner and community advocate by exploring infrastructure investments which add exponential value to cities. These include waterfront parks, bicycle and pedestrian trails, and complete streets—streets which have comfortable and protected zones for bicycles, pedestrians, cars, and transit. She is currently developing a waterfront pop-up installation on Miami’s Biscayne Bay to demonstrate the potential value of a permanently improved and connected waterfront trail in downtown Miami. Other recent projects include an interactive web based tool to visually track all multi-agency infrastructure improvements in downtown Miami and a Complete Streets forum for local municipalities in partnership with Miami Dade County.

Melissa is a board member of the Miami Modern (MIMO) Biscayne Boulevard Association, a 501c3 dedicated to preserving its architectural history and expanding commercial opportunities for this US-1 corridor. She is Past Chair of the Miami Section of the Florida American Planning Association, was Co-chair for the State’s annual conference and served on Miami-Dade County’s Transportation Aesthetic Review Committee. She has been published in the Miami Herald, Florida Planning, Planetizen and Panorama (University of Pennsylvania) and taught as an adjunct professor at Florida Atlantic University. She developed a planning curriculum for middle school students at the Cushman School and is a regular speaker at the Florida American Planning Association’s annual conference.</i>