The People
“One Common Neighborhood”
This phrase was first uttered by Senator Mitch McConnell during the check presentation to Paducah for the first $5.3 million dollars of money he secured for our project. His speech that day perfectly illustrates the importance of this project and getting Paducah back to its roots. The truth is, we could not have said it any better ourselves. You may listen to that speech by clicking here.
How does a project like this get started? Riverfront redevelopments are not uncommon across the nation and have been occurring for decades, but why Paducah, why now? Paducah’s downtown is often praised across the nation as being a great example of historic preservation and downtown revitalization. With that momentum came pressures and need to expand and improve upon the community’s efforts. Many different groups were talking about several different projects along the river without much coordination. The city realized that a plan needed to be formulated that tied all of these things together to make a more cohesive synergy in downtown Paducah. This is our opportunity as a community to guide the positive growth of downtown Paducah and make it a unique destination experience that benefits the variety of existing patrons, but also offers new attractions that will bring new groups of people downtown. Accomplishing these improvements will better position Paducah to capitalize on the fastest growing industry in the United States, tourism.
Citizens
Who is involved in making this happen? Many different groups are involved. Citizens have played a major role in formulating the vision of the plan. Persons from different sectors of the community have participated in this process including banking, retail, recreational boating, engineering, museums, school systems, the arts, attorneys, and small businesses. A major player in this process continues to be the commercial river industries that utilize the rivers daily.
City
The city has two departments leading the charge, Planning and Engineering. Our Mayor and City Commissioners are making the decisions on how the plan is to proceed and where the monies are spent. The Planning Department guided hired consultants in formulating the plan and the planning process. There were several steering committees made up of citizens from as sectors of society, as well as numerous public hearings. The Engineering Department is working with the consultants on taking the vision from the plan and making it reality. The Parks Department is helping program recreation components of the plan and the associated amenities.
Consultants
JJR out of Madison, Wisconsin was selected as the consultant to aid the city in formulating the plan and continue to assist us in designing and implementing the first phase of construction. Why JJR? They were selected based on their experiences in the three fields of planning, engineering, and landscape architecture. Paducah’s unique situation with terrain, the floodwall, and water fluctuations present a major challenge in itself. Therefore, a firm was needed that had experience in taking plans to reality and designing new components that would fit within the challenges our situation presented. Click here to discover other projects that JJR has been involved with.
The Future
More public meetings are planned as the future implementation of the plan is touted. Citizen involvement is key when making decisions on continued implementation of the plan.
A Riverfront Development Corporation (RDC) is in the process of being formed that will take on several roles. One task will be the establishment of the Tax Increment Financing District (TIF) and administering funds generated from it. Another task will be implementing some form of design guidelines that will apply to new projects along the riverfront and portions of downtown. Perhaps the most important task of this agency will be to facilitate the implementation of the riverfront plan as funding becomes available. This group will be responsible for making sure that the riverfront plan stays a top priority in the community over time. There are many examples of RDCs throughout the United States.