The City of Weyburn held an open house last Friday, inviting the community to see the draft concept plans developed for the city’s downtown revitalization.
Renee Cugnet, Director of Engineering with the city, explains the project was initiated to rejuvenate the city’s core, enhancing its appeal to residents, businesses, and visitors.
“Its initiative is part of the broader strategy to take an opportunity to update our infrastructure, starting with our undergrounds, obviously, and just to stimulate that economic growth and bring in that community engagement.”
The downtown revitalization project began when the city partnered with the Weyburn Chamber of Commerce and the regional economic development groups. Cugnet explains they went on to obtain Saskatchewan-based Landscape Architecture and Community Planning firm, Crosby Hanna & Associates, in July of last year.
Through this collaboration, they developed a conceptual plan based on an assessment of the downtown core.
“Assessments that were completed included the actual physical surveying of the existing property lines, infrastructure condition assessments, like the above ground infrastructure condition assessments. Traffic studies were done that looked at traffic volumes, turning movements, parking space utilization, access and egress into and out of the downtown core area, as well as accommodating special events, and as well as city maintenance operations.”
Following these assessments, a stakeholder engagement session was held with the Chamber of Commerce, and downtown businesses were given the opportunity to provide feedback on the existing downtown features and suggest improvements.
Cugnet explains some of the factors that were taken into consideration when drafting the newly unveiled concepts, including city maintenance operations, fire rescue, and vehicle and pedestrian accessibility.
“But then also the importance of keeping the small rural town vibes that make Weyburn unique. The main focus was just to enhance the already charming character of our downtown area but adding some pedestrian corridors and pocket parks and updated vegetation, making it a little more inviting and walkable.”
The main features of the plan center on updates to the streetscape, including widened sidewalks, updated green spaces, and the addition of pocket parks to city parking lots. East-west back alleys along Third Street will also be converted to walking-only pedestrian corridors.
While the plans have been drafted, Cugnet says it will take some time before we see them implemented.
“Unless the provincial or federal government announces some funding directed for this type of project, there's still going to be a few years of planning and budgeting before construction can start.”
“The first step in the project would be doing a detailed condition assessment of the underground infrastructure in the project area and then prioritizing those underground replacements accordingly. Then once the underground infrastructure is replaced, the streetscape would be replaced according to this new downtown revitalization concept plan.”
The draft concept plans can be accessed on the City of Weyburn website, where the community is also asked to provide feedback through a survey. The plans will remain on display at City Hall until the end of the month as well, with paper copies of the survey available.