MIDLAND, Texas — Earlier this year, the Midland Development Corporation put out a request for a proposal to redevelop a full block downtown that MDC and the City of Midland own.
Midland Development Corporation will be presented three presentations and proposals from three different firms interested in being chosen. Kimley-Horn was the first firm to present Monday on why they believe they're the best choice, citing they're team has enhanced community engagement, national perspective and local roots.
"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. "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."
In various slide presentations, the firm explained their experience with other community projects in the state of Texas.
"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. "We know the citizens of the area, we know the culture [and] the approach we need to be taking with working with the community."
Other topics discussed in the presentation were 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. "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," said Bowers.
Executive director of the Midland Development Corporation, Sara Harris said a master plan is needed to help make downtown more of a success.
"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. "Our motivation is to continue down the path of success we’re already seeing with downtown Midland."