A steering committee report presented to the Allen City Council last month had some somber news: “There is no heart of Allen right now. No true destination.”
But there’s hope. After a year of gathering community feedback and working with Stantec consultants, there’s a 183-page plan to bring the Collin County city back to life.
“It provides a vision, goals, and an implementation plan to revitalize Allen’s downtown and turn it into the city’s vibrant heart,” states a social media post from city hall linking to the July 12 meeting video.
“This isn’t going to happen overnight,” said Downtown Steering Committee chairman Tommy Baril. “We recognize that; we acknowledge that.”
The plan suggests first repurposing the downtown core area, which includes Main Street, a community plaza, and the city’s old post office. Steering committee members said they expect property owners in east and west downtown will follow suit with new development and redevelopment.
“I think there are some great wins there that will help stir economic revitalization as well as community development,” Baril said. “We anticipate that housing in the mixed-use area will happen relatively quickly in west and east downtown.”
The implementation plan includes regulatory actions such as zoning changes, downtown rebranding, public improvements, and monitoring.
Though the plan provides a framework for council reference, no specific developments or changes to Downtown Allen land use were considered by Council during the July 12 meeting. But change is coming, advised Mayor Ken Fulk.
“We don’t want to wait very long before we start taking action,” Fulk said. “[The steering committee] did a heck of a job pulling all this together. The attention to detail, the thoroughness, the fact that [they] conducted all this at the speed of business … I really love the fact that we had as much citizen engagement as we had. [They] set up a process that allowed this to be a citizen-driven result and recommendations to us that we can think about, consider, and take action on.”
Housing
In addition to gathering feedback from a huge sample of the community, including everyone from business owners to high school students, the steering committee engaged downtown property owners and developers.
The housing approach outlined in the revitalization plan underscores the concept that a vibrant downtown requires residents to support it.
“There has been significant support for more housing downtown, but also significant concern about the impacts to adjacent single-family neighborhoods,” Baril said.
The plan’s approach to housing includes:
- Residential developments in the west and east parts of downtown at the currently allowable density of 32 units per acre.
- More mixed-use development (rather than 100 percent residential) to create less density and fewer multi-family residential units downtown than currently allowed by zoning. This includes requiring active, commercial ground-floor uses along Allen Drive and Main Street, as well as adjacent to Cottonwood Creek Park.
- A city-wide housing gap analysis to determine what types of housing are needed in the city and which types would be appropriate for downtown. Analysis should include, but not be limited to, the extent to which there is a shortage, demand, or both of privately-owned residences (even if in multi-family units).
- Incentives for the types of housing needed.
“As far as housing, we heard diversity,” Baril said, referencing the public feedback gathered by the steering committee.
They also discussed density and the number of stories compatible with adjacent neighborhoods. The steering committee worked closely with developers of the Calder property east of downtown and with Wolverine Interests, which owns the land adjacent to Allen’s Whisenant Estates neighborhood.
“Everybody in this central business district has the right to develop housing in that area and they’ve expressed the intention to do that,” Baril said. “We’ve tried to identify the community concerns since we have an adjacent single-story neighborhood just to the north. One of the things we’re hoping Wolverine will partner with the neighborhood on is creating a greenspace. We would also encourage a setback and we would encourage a step-up to two-story townhomes before they go up to four stories that they’re able to.”
Land Use
The land use framework developed by the Downtown Steering Committee goes one step deeper than the city’s comprehensive plan and zoning maps “to provide recommendations on the location of specific uses based on the existing context and community input,” explained Baril.
Among the recommendations are:
- Core Mixed-Use: A unique four-block area that forms the heart of the downtown. It will include mixed use, with active street levels and living opportunities above businesses. A new zoning sub-district may be created there.
- Mixed-Use: Slated for the northwest corner of Allen Drive and Main Street, along Cottonwood Creek and in other potential future redevelopment areas. Mixed-use areas include active street level uses (such as restaurants, cafes, bars, outdoor seating); possible living space, offices or innovative spaces on upper floors; on sites off Main Street and Allen Drive, and possible redevelopment as commercial and/or office space.
- Community spaces: Civic and institutional uses (library, city hall, old post office site); parks, recreation and open spaces (senior recreation center, The Edge Skate Park, Hydrous Wake Park, Downtown Allen Community Plaza, Cottonwood Creek Park)
- Commercial: Along US-75, Allen Drive between Boyd and Coats, along Greenville Road. Spaces best suited for pure commercial/non-residential development.
- Bike/pedestrian connections: Allen Drive, Main Street, St. Mary Drive, Cottonwood Creek and Ash Street. High-priority areas for well-designed, safe bike and pedestrian connections, especially to the existing city trail system.
“Twelve months ago the city council made an outstanding decision. You all empowered the community to dare to dream and develop a vision by the community and for the community,” Baril said during the July 12 meeting. “Each community member checked their ideas at the door. We were very clear, very explicit, that this was not about them; this was not about their ideas. We established three core values: community focus, selfless stewardship, and transparency.”
Allen City Council members agreed at the meeting to review the massive report produced by the steering committee and take action soon to identify funding sources and put the plan in motion.
“We need to make decisions pretty quickly so we can get this show on the road,” Mayor Fulk said.
