MIDLAND, Texas — One of the key priorities within Midland City Council has been to continue developing and expanding downtown Midland.
Now, they may have some help with that.
Midland Development Corporation has unveiled plans to commission a master plan in order to continue the development of downtown.
“MDC has substantial investment in property downtown, and revitalizing downtown has been stated as being a priority of city council," said MDC Executive Director Sara Harris. "So the MDC board is exploring commissioning a downtown master plan that will help provide some of the data and vision that we need to move forward with some of these larger projects.”
Harris also provided some insight into what kind of statistics and data that are going to be provided within the master plan.
“It’ll provide some data about office occupancy, parking, traffic, and then help the city envision the future of downtown and how that can be achieved organically," said Harris.
She also reached out to three public groups to provide potential plans for the city.
At the next meeting they will present their plans for the city and answer questions from the board.
“It’ll be an expansion of their proposals," said Harris. "Just saying how they will assist the city of Midland, downtown stakeholders who create a coherent and comprehensive plan.”
While the plan would only be the downtown area of Midland, similar plans to what MDC is working on have found great success in the past.
“A plan like this would just focus on downtown, or the central business district," said Harris. "It would be much more finely tuned than a comprehensive plan for the entire city, but I think you can look at neighboring cities in Texas that have done downtown master planning with great results, so we would be looking for something similar.”
The last time Midland rolled out a master plan for downtown development was in 2007.
While it hasn't been finished yet, MDC is planning on presenting it in front of the city council to get their official approval.