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Leadership Award for Redevelopment |
| Downtown Plano Transit
Village
Downtown Plano, for many years the forgotten commercial center of a farming community transformed by suburbanization, has re-emerged as a vital, active mixed-use urban center. The vision of downtown Plano as a transit village began in 1997 through the City's update of the Downtown Development Plan. Spurred by the arrival of the Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) light rail system in 2002, Amicus Partners has redeveloped a strip shopping center and a single-story office building into a transit-oriented, pedestrian-friendly urban village of 3 and 4 story buildings housing apartments, shops, offices, and restaurants. Historic commercial and civic buildings are also being restored by various parties, including the adaptive reuse of the city's first school gymnasium as a 325-seat performing arts theater. The Awards Jury recognized Downtown Plano Transit Village for "redevelop[ing] the heart of the city into a clean, attractive and historic urban center that will attract shoppers, pedestrians and neighbors to Plano."
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