The Springfield Medical District has a master
plan, although, according to Mike Boer, president of the
medical-district commission, the plan will not be “final,
final, final” until three bodies have approved it. An advisory council comprising neighborhood
residents will convene to approve the plan at a Nov. 1 meeting. The
commission must also sign off on the plan before submitting the
proposal to the Springfield City Council for final approval. If all goes as well, Boer says, the master
plan could be approved by the end of this year. Still unclear, however, is how much the
district will cost taxpayers. Tax-increment financing has been
proposed at previous meetings, but Boer says that no specific costs
were included in drafting the master plan because specific projects
have not yet been outlined. Meanwhile, the second phase of the process
— marketing the proposed district to investors — will
get under way despite limited funding for marketing activities. Dan White, from the Chicago branch of the
Baltimore-based urban design firm RTKL Associates Inc., who
presented the master plan on Monday at Memorial Medical Center, suggests that marketing would primarily be done
through signage to “create and solidify [the medical
district’s] identity without spending too much money.” Since the process began three months ago,
much of the plan has remained the same. Most development efforts in
the district — bounded by Walnut, Eleventh, and Madison
streets, plus North Grand Avenue — are taking place along
Carpenter Street, the area’s proposed main street. Other
highlights include improving access to downtown from the district
and a network of “pocket parks” to connect
neighborhoods within the district. However, planners reconsidered linking
Enterprise and Calhoun streets when members of the community balked
at the idea, saying that such a plan would jeopardize several
historic homes in the area. Therefore areas to allow both
institutional expansion and as neighborhood preservation were
included through the creation of a buffer zone within the district.
The 11-member commission meets at 6 p.m.
today, Thursday, Oct. 20, at the Illinois Technology Enterprise
Center on Carpenter Street to discuss input from Monday’s
meeting.
This article appears in Oct 13-19, 2005.
