Background

The historic Mill Street neighborhood predates Colorado statehood and is still home to a diverse working class population. The neighborhood is primarily residential with single-family homes, with low-density commercial and industrial uses at its edges. The area is bisected by a major railroad and flanked by widely varied land uses: an interstate highway, two homeless shelters, a coal-fired power plant, a creekside park, bicycle trail, and the downtown district. The neighborhood is approximately 120 acres and home to roughly 1,140 people.

After Mill Street residents requested Neighborhood Strategy Area (NSA) designation in 2001, the City prepared a preservation plan in 2003 to identify and prioritize capital improvements eligible for CDBG funding. The plan identified several goals under the categories of Land Use/Zoning, Public Services, Public Facilities, and Housing to preserve the character and enhance the quality of life of the neighborhood. The Community Development Division has since expended over $450,000 in CDBG funds on Mill Street area improvements, including sidewalk improvements, drainage infrastructure, housing rehabilitation, neighborhood association support, and a community garden, in accordance with the plan.

While no longer a Neighborhood Strategy Area, the Mill Street neighborhood still shows signs of socioeconomic struggle through lower household incomes and property values, as well as higher rates of unemployment and property crime. As a low-income area, it is eligible for CDBG-funded public improvements and has many residents likely to qualify for direct assistance with HOME Investment Partnership (HOME) funds. The City would like to seek other public and private sources of funding for future Mill Street improvements.

The Mill Street neighborhood and its adjacent areas have seen significant changes since the publication of the 2003 plan and will see significantly more in the near future. In 2016, with a $2.5 million investment of CDBG funds, the Springs Rescue Mission opened a low-barrier emergency shelter and will soon finish the next phases of the campus construction with a day shelter/resource center and supportive housing facility. Also in 2016, Colorado Springs Utilities voted to begin a process of decommissioning the Drake Power Plant, which flanks the neighborhood's western edge, by 2035.

Near the neighborhood's northern edge, a new cultural district is set to emerge. A planned 60,000 square-foot U.S. Olympic Museum is slated to break ground on the corner of West Cimarron Street and Sierra Madre Street in 2017. Museum officials estimate it will attract 350,000 visitors annually. In the next few years, this southwestern edge of downtown expects to see a million more square feet of mixed use real estate.

South of the Mill Street neighborhood is the Ivywild neighborhood, where a recently created Urban Renewal Authority project is catalyzing new development. With the Ivywild School conversion and significant infrastructure improvements, Ivywild is growing and uses intensifying. Directly adjacent to Ivywild and just southeast of the Mill Street neighborhood is the South Nevada corridor, which was designated as an urban renewal area by City Council in 2015. In addition to slum and blight removal, this corridor will be the focus of new mixed use developments featuring more housing density, retail, and public infrastructure improvements.

The effects of robust redevelopment surrounding the Mill Street neighborhood will bring exciting new opportunities, but with them significant pressures on capacity and affordability. The goal of this neighborhood plan is to take stock of current social, economic, and environmental conditions of the study area, create an updated community-driven vision for strategic actions, and provide a clear blueprint of financial, regulatory, design, and social strategies to achieve that vision.

Objectives

The successful proposal will demonstrate experience with sustainable neighborhood planning, engaging diverse stakeholders, and developing successful implementation strategies in similar political and environmental contexts.

The goals of the Mill Street Plan are to:

• Prepare a detailed plan of the community's vision for equitable development in the face of further downtown growth and transformation while respecting the historic character of the area. The process will involve a multitude of stakeholders: homeowners and tenants of all ages, business owners, homeless residents, service providers, technical experts, local government officials. The plan will include detailed strategies for achieving this vision.
• Ensure reasonable consistency with relevant active and ongoing plans: comprehensive plans, downtown plans, utilities plans, transportation plans, urban renewal plan, etc.
• Create and implement a participatory process that provides accessible, engaging, and low-barrier opportunities for residents and workers to learn and share their voices.
• Establish baseline data describing environmental, social, and economic issues that the neighborhood faces and achievable quantitative benchmarks to track improvement beyond plan approval.
• Address issues of affordable housing, homelessness, transportation, employment, education, open space, use-to-use compatibility, gentrification, and connectivity.
• Explore the need for and the implementation process of a quiet zone to address industrial and railway noise.
• Present a clear set of short-term and long-term recommendations to inform neighborhood improvements and future development in accordance with the neighborhood's vision and values.
• Create prioritization and implementation schedule linked to responsible agencies and funding sources.
• Set the stage for the Mill Street neighborhood to be a thriving, dynamic community that celebrates its diversity and historic past.