Home to a future commuter rail transit line, Downtown Duncanville has initiated an economic development strategy to grow a market for downtown housing, higher quality retail, additional upscale restaurants, and eventually substantial professional office users. The key to sustained success will be the attraction of young professionals and empty-nesters to live in Duncanville as a complement to the great family environment well established in the community.
Kimley-Horn was selected to be a part of the team that helped create a multi-phased Main Street development plan for the City. This initiative entailed facilitation of a community committee for input and the development of a detailed redevelopment master plan, including the conceptual design of transit-oriented development (TOD) around the likely future location of a commuter rail station at Center and Main Streets. The master plan delineates areas for enhancement and likely locations for substantial redevelopment while providing improved bicycle, pedestrian, parking, and streetscaping amenities.
From Vision to Reality
Kimley-Horn led the design of paving, parking, pedestrian, storm drain, water, and extensive streetscaping improvements for this $2 million project; then later served as the City’s Resident Project Representative throughout construction, providing full-time inspection and construction management services. To limit the inconvenience on business owners during construction, emphasis was placed on maintaining traffic, pedestrian flow, access to the businesses, and parking.
Kimley-Horn’s innovative techniques included a street diet, lane narrowing, streetscaping, park once areas, and ADA friendliness. The newly-designed roadway compliments new urbanist and transit-oriented development initiatives by reducing automobile characteristics of the roadway. These pedestrian- and bicycle-friendly improvements will redefine the aging downtown and serve as a catalyst for future development.
ADA Compliance
The existing corridor did not meet current ADA/TDLR requirements—consisting of steep ramps, steps, and drop-offs as well as storefronts with varying elevations of door thresholds. Our challenge was to design improvements that exceeded ADA/TDLR requirements, both along the corridor and into the existing buildings, while balancing aesthetics and access. Kimley-Horn utilized years of ADA experience and accomplished this task with minimal height walls, very few steps, and without rails along the storefronts.
This project was completed 30 days ahead of schedule and under the contract amount. The project also won the TPWA Public Works Project of the Year Award in 2012 and the 2013 Celebrating Leadership in Development Excellence (CLIDE) Award from NCTCOG.
