Austin’s Central Avenue will become the “main street” in the neighborhood that will heighten safety, will be full of historical places, storefronts. 

Two meetings this week are expected to offer background or recommendations for planners and the public to begin to work with.

Austin Coming Together, a nonprofit community development organization, is working on the Central Avenue redevelopment in Austin, a project aimed at turning the corridor into the “spine” of the area. The project is in its early planning stages.

According to Ethan Ramsay, planning and investment manager at ACT, main intersections along Central Avenue that are targeted for redevelopment are Madison, Chicago and Lake streets, I-290 and as far as North Avenue. He also added that the project will take more than five years and millions of dollars to implement.

ACT is funding the project through a local technical assistance grant provided by the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning. 

Another collaboration is with the Local Initiatives Support Corporation that helped to create the 2018 quality-of-life plan and a technical support from Urban Land Institute Chicago for the plan.

“Austin is a really big neighborhood and there’s a lot of sub neighborhoods,” Ramsay said. “We felt that based on the planning process in 2018 there was emphasis on trying to create a plan for Central Avenue as a corridor to act as the spine or the connection between all the sub neighborhoods.”

The ULI’s plan is called Technical Assistance Planning Report and it outlined three areas to transform Central Ave. into Austin’s “main street.” They are:

Public Realm

This includes public spaces such as streets, alleys, plazas and parks. The report recommends enhancing and celebrating historic sites such as Columbus Park and Austin Town Hall, connecting them with transit stops, schools and commercial corridors. It also suggests improving walkability and safety by adding traffic calming features, bike and scooter stations and reopening the Blue Line station at Central Avenue that closed in the 1970s.

Development

This involves promoting development that improves quality of life and creates opportunities. The report cites data from the city and the Chicago Central Area Committee that shows Austin loses more than $175 million a year in retail and dining spending to neighboring communities. It proposes increasing safety by having a police officer at the intersection, attracting food-related businesses and filling vacant storefronts with grocery stores. It also envisions using the former Corcoran as a pop-up space, a long-term grocery store, or a coffee shop, restaurant or co-working space. Another priority is investing in family capital by supporting homeownership, multi-family housing and live-work units.

Implementation

This requires building community support and partnerships, finding funding sources and other resources to advance community goals. The report notes several ongoing planning and development projects in Austin, such as the Soul City Corridor Plan for Chicago Avenue, the Laramie Bank redevelopment on Chicago and Laramie, and the Aspire Center for Workforce Innovation on Central and Madison. It plans to create a master plan to integrate them. It also recognizes the need for multiple and sustained funding streams for the project.

On Jan. 23 ACT will host a livestream on their Facebook page from 12:30 p.m. till 1:45 p.m. to offer background about the project. The recording will be available at the ACT’s Facebook group and YouTube page.

Ramsay said the purpose of this live stream is to give an update on how the project evolved from a year ago. They will highlight buildings on Central Avenue, markets, Columbus Park, schools, and the Aspire Center For Workforce Innovation. 

ACT and Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning also will discuss the Central Avenue Corridor at 9 a.m., Thursday Jan. 25 at 5049 W. Harrison St. In Chicago.

In early March, ACT is planning a community summit on the progress of the quality life plan and a big part of the summit will be engaging people around the Central Avenue plan.

“If we’re really good at leveraging all these different institutions doing really impactful work and make sure that they’re collaborative in how they’re doing programming, projects, trying to impact the community they can have just even more impact.” Ramsay said. “That’s the philosophy of Austin Coming Together.”