The City owns park property along the
Union Pacifi c rail line in downtown Arlington
near the intersection of Front and Center
streets. Plans have been in the works
for about a decade to do something with
the land, but the AUDC took the project
a step further. Recently, development in
the area has put pressure on availability
of off-street parking. In addition, activation
of the empty park space is key to creating
a vibrant downtown destination. The
AUDC completed a land-use and parking
analysis of a built-out scenario along
Front Street to determine how much
parking was needed. Then, an on-street
parking plan was created to demonstrate
the number of available on-street parking
spaces that could be created via striping.
In addition, the AUDC created a three-part
park design for the vacant park property,
incorporating the themes of Cultural
Space, Civic Space, and Natural Space.
The entire development proposal will help
to create an active, thriving Front Street
with excellent streetscape design and
quality public space to connect this part of
Downtown to Abram Street and UTA to the
south. The fi rst phase of the project, the
on-street parking plan, will be implemented
in Fall 2011.