City design and planning discussed at Missoula meeting - KPAX.com | Continuous News | Missoula & Western Montana

City design and planning discussed at Missoula meeting

MISSOULA - Missoula city officials and urban design consultants held the final community engagement session for the Missoula Design Excellence project on Tuesday evening.

The project focuses on the downtown area and main corridors like Reserve Street and Brooks Street. As the city continues to expand, project objectives state that they are hoping to capture the essence of Missoula in future developments.

City and design officials presented elements of the project draft, from policy changes to design concepts. The project overview says it seeks to reinforce high-quality design efforts that they say can add value to properties and the city as a whole.     

“It also responds to concerns that some development projects have not met the city’s objective to convey a distinct identity and instead are generic,” the design overview states.

Winter, the owner of the Boulder, Colorado-based urban design consultation group Winter & Company -- that is contracted to work with Missoula officials -- says that they asked people in Missoula to describe their vision of the city.

“Some of the most prominent ones were connection with nature, natural materials, outdoors, a sense of seeing the outdoors. Those are all aspects that really are underlying some of those key design objectives and design elements,” Winter said.

On the Missoula Design Excellence website, you can view all of the elements of the plan and submit comments on the draft. All comments are due by April 3, and they plan to present the draft to the Missoula City Council after that.