Downtown Huntsville Ideas PLUS

get zoning in place to create the downtown we want to see, not one that allows buildings based on uses.

Design and construct a ‘Signature Tower of Huntsville,’ one that has offices and residential condos. This would break the height limit on the skyline and promote the idea that Huntsville is sustainable for going up rather than out. Both the Mobile, AL RSA Battle House Tower and the Austin, Texas Austonian Towers are great examples of such projects.

Ability to be an indoor/outdoor market with refrigeration and other support facilities for being open everyday. A colofull train shed roof would draw attention from the Parkway and 565

Do something like Saturn hurling the rocket into space. Lots of companies here were involved in that great accomplishment

The City can facilitate development of new business and residential based on where they locate parking garages.Parking is like oxygen to downtowns. New Garages can help infill development, or create new development oppurtunities for retail, residential. and offices. And PLEASE NO MORE SURFACE PARKING.

Current Municipal BUILING IS IN STATE OF RAPID DECAY. The site it sits on is best hotel site in the city

all of Searcy homes property should be used for high density residential (apartments), offices, parking garages, retail; developed in a truly urban pattern, with a public market along the railroad tracks visible from the parkway and the interstate

sand volleyball courts across from skate park and dog park

Instead of scattering fledgeling stores about downtown, concentrate them into well mixed mini-shopping streets in Garage street frontages

put it with the other active park uses

To help make the whole area more walkable and to create a vivid sense of connection with Huntsville's past outside of Twickenham, create a self-guided "tour" for pedestrians, with a series of walkways with historical markers (to supplement those already existing) and occasional benches with shade trees, linking sites of cultural significance throughout the Medical District, Big Spring Park, downtown and the depot area. Acknowledge Huntsville's Native American and African American past and natural history to supplement the space and cotton related histories so often noted. Markers, monuments or plaques could explain the Indian tribes that once lived here, convey botanical information about old trees, explain caves and springs, identify the stockyards, recall businesses in the former black business district and churches that are no longer there, and identify the main trails of days gone by. We could memorialize the old neighborhood known as the Grove, teach about the waterways flowing through town, tell where the railroad tracks go, show the types of architecture replaced by Urban Renewal, or show a map of the initial survey lines, for some examples. To remember buildings now gone we could have a pictorial plaques at places like the site of the old Carnegie library, and one at the court house to depict the old courthouses. An effort like this could help unify the different parts of downtown as well as the people of downtown in two ways: by encouraging people to get out and circulate, and by enhancing their collective sense of local history. As we improve downtown for the future, we can also preserve memories of Huntsville's past in a tangible, healthful way that is free and open to the public. (This photo shows a pictorial plaque in Birmingham's Civil Rights District.)