City of Richmond and Partners Received Outstanding Plan Award for Hull Street Revitalization Plan
The City of Richmond, in partnership with Chesterfield County, the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC), and the Virginia based planning and design firm Rhodeside & Harwell were recently honored at the annual conference of the Virginia Chapter of the American Planning Association (APA-VA) with an Outstanding Plan Award for their Comprehensive Revitalization Plan for the Hull Street Corridor.
APA-VA awards recognize specific individuals, organizations, firms and/or communities for outstanding contributions to planning in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Any APA-VA member may nominate plans, projects, programs, individuals, or organizations for one of a limited number of awards. Recipients are chosen to receive awards based on their strengths in these five categories: innovation, transferability, quality, implementation, and comprehensiveness. The Hull Street Plan’s capacities in these five categories, as described below, merited its selection.
Innovation: The Hull Street Plan incorporated a bilingual outreach strategy that reached across ethnic, age, economic, and education groups to establish the necessary systems to engage residents. In addition, the plan developed an innovative strategy for the retrofit of the limited-access Chippenham Parkway/Hull Street interchange that provides safe pedestrian and bicycle facilities without degrading automobile movement.
Quality: The plan is informative and easily understood by a range of audiences. The executive summary is highly graphic, available in English and Spanish and presents the comprehensive implementation strategy with concision. The report’s technical appendices provide depth and detail on the analyses that serve as the foundation for policy recommendations. The “before and after” visualizations demonstrate the impact of both minor and major design and infrastructure upgrades.
Transferability: The plan, though specific to Hull Street, addresses challenges inner-ring, suburban, commercial corridors face in other cities. The plan serves as a model for livable mixed-income neighborhoods served by bus service and safe pedestrian/bike facilities to major activity nodes. Recommendations are immediately applicable to other area corridors such as U.S. 1 (Jefferson Davis Highway) and Route 60 (Midlothian Turnpike).
Implementation: The City of Richmond will issue a Request for Proposals for improvements to the City’s portion of Hull Street Road in the coming months. The plan serves as the guiding document for construction plans and site prioritization.
Comprehensiveness: The plan outlines a thorough, coordinated and phased strategy for revitalization, including safe multi-modal connections, transportation infrastructure upgrades, visual and physical enhancements, improved housing options, expanded job opportunities and critical recreational and environmental investments—all needed to transform Hull Street Road.
The Hull Street Corridor Revitalization Plan
The City of Richmond, in partnership with Chesterfield County received a 2010 Community Challenge Planning Grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, as well as a TIGER II Planning Grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation to prepare a corridor revitalization plan for a 4.7 mile stretch of Hull Street Road/Route 360, extending from Hicks Road in Chesterfield County to just west of Southside Plaza in the City of Richmond.
The goal of the Hull Street Corridor Revitalization Plan is to create a comprehensive, implementation-oriented strategy for creating sound, economically sustainable quality of life enhancements. These improvements include; strong and safe multi-modal connections, transportation infrastructure upgrades, visual and physical enhancements, improved housing options, expanded job opportunities and critical recreational and environmental investments – all needed to transform the Hull Street corridor from simply a highway through communities to a vital, vibrant place where people from both the area and the region will want to live, shop, work and seek recreation.
The final plan, implementation strategy, appendices, visuals and other resources can be accessed at hullstreet360.com.
The APA-VA’s mission is to make great communities happen in Virginia by offering continuing professional development and other valuable services to its members that will enable them to excel in their practice. To learn more about APA-VA, visit apavirginia.org.
Individuals pictured in are as follows (left to right):
George Homewood, President of APA Virginia
Douglas Dunlap, Deputy Director, Department Planning and Development Review, City of Richmond
James Hill, Principal Planner, Department of Planning and Development Review, City of Richmond
Latisha W. Jenkins, Revitalization Manager, Chesterfield Economic Development, Chesterfield County
Brian T. Copeland, Professional Engineer, Timmons Group
Deana Rhodeside, Ph.D., Director, Rhodeside & Harwell
John Taylor, Senior Planner, Department of Planning and Development Review, City of Richmond
Meredith Judy, Associate Principal, Urban Planner, Rhodeside & Harwell