Charette examines downtown features

By Roger Morris Western News Publisher

More than 50 Libby area residents participated Thursday night in a ³design charette² to help a team of consultants come up with a plan for revitalizing downtown Libby.

The effort is part of Libby Revitalization Inc.¹s focus on the downtown area. They hired the consultants to help with the planning effort.

The redesign of downtown through key elements such as landscaping, sidewalks and lighting dominated the discussion. Consultants called it the ³first pebble in the pond² in inventing the fabric for redeveloping the community.

LRI board members and the consultants met with businessowners at a downtown meeting Thursday morning and then with another group of businessowners at lunch. The meeting Thursday night was designed to pull desired design elements from local people which could be used in improving the downtown corridors along Mineral and California avenues as well as their intersections with U.S. Highway 2.

³We¹re trying to create a place — a sense of place,² said Lorraine Roach of the Hingston Roach Group. Presently there is no sense of place. It¹s all over the place.²

Ron Slade, a planner and landscape architect with CTA Architects Engineers, said Mineral Avenue is an 80-foot right-of-way, which is not people friendly.

³It¹s all about making a place people want to linger,² he said. ³How can we make it a comfortable place to be.²

Slade showed 22 slides of downtown-type settings that included a variety of key features and enmities such as trees and other landscaping, wide sidewalks, more attractive lighting and parks or squares. He asked people to write down whether they found those designs attractive or not, and what elements did they like or dislike.

From that review of the slides, the consultants will come back with drawings that will be a proposal for downtown Libby. Slade said he will incorporate those design elements to re-make the old Hafferman¹s grocery store on the corner of Mineral and U.S. Highway 2.

³We need to realize that all of a sudden there won¹t be $10 million in changes,² said Betty Jo Wood, LRI executive director. ³We¹re looking at little things in design.²

Slade said at the next meeting, there will be conceptual drawings of Mineral Avenue with details along with a cost estimate.

³Funding will obviously be a challenge,² he said. Funding sources exist but the community will have to come up with a match, there are special districts that can be created and other things.

He said it works best to create partnerships. Downtown Bonners Ferry, Idaho is in the process of a redesign created by the same consultants. The project is being orchestrated by the city, the county and the Salish-Kootenai tribe.

³This is a long-term plan. It isn¹t going to happen overnight but it is going to happen. You have to believe and stay positive.²