Midland Development Corporation (MDC) has secured presentation meetings with three different firms following its request for a proposal to redevelop a full block downtown co-owned by the MDC and the City of Midland. The first outline was first presented by Kimley-Horn, who expressed the company’s ability to promote engagement among the community, according to NewsWest 9.
"We’re real interested in Midland as a key area we want to work there’s a lot of momentum right now with some of the things that have been happening downtown," Kimley-Horn Vice President Mark Bowers said, according to NewsWest 9. "We see it as a great opportunity to come in and kind of massage things to bring some expertise from what we’ve seen in other communities to help build upon that work that’s already been done."
The firm provided details about its experience with other community projects in Texas through a PowerPoint presentation, according to NewsWest 9.
"We want to show people that it’s apples to apples comparisons that there are other communities where we’ve come up with some ideas and those ideas are starting to take root where we’ve worked," Bowers said during the presentation. "We know the citizens of the area; we know the culture [and] the approach we need to be taking with working with the community."
Others participating in the presentation also discussed ways to promote community engagement and implementation.
"We have a very strong philosophy that for a plan to be successful it needs to be a community’s plan. We need to talk to the community they need to be able to point to things and say yea that was my idea that got included," Bowers said, per the NewsWest 9 report. "And it really builds grassroots momentum for the community to say absolutely I wanna see that plan become a reality."
"That implementation strategy is critical to make sure there’s a step-by-step approach with partnerships [and] funding streams to be able to help make this vision a reality," Bowers said.
According to Sara Harris, MDC's Executive Director, the master plan is a necessity to help downtown be more successful.
"Other cities that have undergone successful downtown redevelopment have done so with the help of a plan. It’s difficult to have cohesive downtown development and growth without a roadmap that helps decision makers and investors," Harris said, reported NewsWest 9. "Our motivation is to continue down the path of success we’re already seeing with downtown Midland."