Our Focus: Downtown
Downtown Pawtucket
Creating a dense, pedestrian-friendly urban core with a mix of commercial, residential and civic uses is a central focus of The Pawtucket Foundation. We hope to revitalize our downtown to become a redgional hub of mixed-use buildings with active storefronts, vibrant business and retail activity within a safe neighborhood community. We are working to rebuild a residential and commercial district traditionally associated with a successful downtown.
As part of a four part series on the Pawtucket Foundation, the Times outlined the Foundation's downtown priorities. Click to download the article: Times Rebuilding Downtown (pdf)
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Downtown Urban Design and Transportation Circulation Plan
A commitment to reshape Pawtucket
The City of Pawtucket, in partnership with the Pawtucket Foundation, have begun a new project to reshape downtown Pawtucket. The Pawtucket Downtown Design Plan (PDDP) is a design study to help improve traffic patterns, parking, public space, and zoning to enhance the quality of downtown for residents, businesses and visitors. The contract for the project has been awareded to Thurlow Small Architecture, a Pawtucket based firm that built a project team of architecs, designers, engineers and communication experts. Over the course of 2010/2011 the team will host a series of community meetings to gather input, share progress and release their final report. The project website is available at www.downtownpawtucket.us.
Project Information & Goals:
Downtown Design PlanThe primary purpose of the project is to provide design recommendations which will enhance both the economic vitality and liveability of Pawtucket's downtown district by:
- Proposing traffic circulation patterns, intersection and traffic signalization redesigns, pedestrian and bicycle access improvements, parking management approaches, streetscape and lighting recommendations, and locational signage which will help make the downtown district a better place to live, experience as visitor/customer, invest in and conduct business.
- Consider land use/zoning code modifications to the downtown district which reference and incorporate "smart growth", "transit oriented development", and "form-based" design principles.
- Better connections to downtown Pawtucket from surrounding neighborhoods by improved pedestrians, bicycle and vehicular access.
- A more walkable, safer and pedestrian friendly experience in the downtown district.
- The integration of transit oriented development principles in downtown redevelopment decisionmaking