Fourth Streetscape and Market Street Park concepts revealed

Plans for two Stellar projects that impact the heart of Huntingburg were revealed during a public meeting at the Old Town Hall Wednesday evening.

It was an appropriate venue for the reveal since one project demonstrated enhancements to draw much more attention to the historic building on Geiger Street. Here is the presentation of the Fourth Streetscape and Heritage Trail as well as the Market Street Park.

Attendees were also treated to virtual tours of both projects.

The park is designed to be multiuse with venues for weddings, concerts or performances as well as picnics. Access from Fourth Street is accented with a wall and portico with tables next to Current Blend, the new cowork space.

The designers, Taylor Seifker Williams Design Group, included features that accented the Old Town Hall, one of the city’s most iconic features. A path framed by trees and accented by a covered parking area that doubles as covered areas for vendors of the farmers’ market or other events points to the iconic building from U.S. 231/Main Street. Currently, the view from the busy highway is blocked by trees.

To address concerns about lack of parking — or the conceived lack of parking — and incorporate ideas to increase the attraction of the city’s downtown, historic district, the designers presented a flexible parking process. The process is demonstrated in the virtual tour. The system allows merchants or the city to remove stanchions along the sidewalk to expand the front landscape into the street’s parking spaces for special events. Placements along the street allow for gates to be inserted to create a varied streetscape depending on the needs of the city or merchants.

To aid in the transition, the sidewalks and street are all on the same level (there are not curbs). This adds to the fluidity of the space and with the added gates at each intersection of the two block section, the entire two blocks can be turned into a huge event space.

Parking was a major concern, but Ron Siefker demonstrated with an overlay of the Walmart parking lot in Jasper that large parking areas were within a very short walking distance of the street and shops.

Now, the city and designers are taking comments before they create requests for quotes.

The Market Street Park construction is expected to begin in 2016 and the Fourth Streetscape and Heritage Trail is expected to begin in 2016.