Urban Collage, Inc. as part of a team led by EOP Architects and Perkins + Will, recently completed a campus master for a new 48-acre campus of Bluegrass Community and Technical College. The plan creates a blueprint for the growth and development of BCTC and environs and builds on continued momentum in Lexington’s north side. Urban Collage helped identify relationships between the university’s edges and the surrounding urban context and helped establish potential future community partnerships.

The City of Prattville, an old Alabama mill town, sought to update its Comp Plan, which dated from 1996, and focus on how to plan for the future while also preserving its historic mill past. Urban Collage partnered with Sain Engineering to create an approach that started with a very high level assessment and analysis and gradually worked down to targeted areas of detail. Throughout the process, a comprehensive plan for public involvement and consensus building was designed to ensure that the plan was driven by the City and its citizens. The process is in its final phase, and it’s anticipated that the effort known now as “Project Prattville” will be completed and adopted before the end of this year.

The Northwest Georgia Housing Authority in Rome retained Urban Collage to lead a multi-disciplinary team to prepare a master plan for the revitalization of the East Rome neighborhood centering on the redevelopment of the obsolete Altoview Terrace public housing complex. The team deliberately expanded the original study area to trace the boundaries of the entire East Rome neighborhood, with the goal of creating a community-based Official Redevelopment Plan that would be the policy foundation for future Housing Authority and private development as well as public improvements.

Urban Collage this year sponsored The Georgia Conservancy’s Growth Management Program, an annual course on urban design (Good Urbanism 101). The six-class course offered focused on the history, principles, and current practices about designing better cities and a better Atlanta and was taught by three noted Georgia Tech professors along with several guest practitioners, including experts from the Urban Collage staff.

Senior Planner Niti Gajjar and her husband Aditya Gajjar welcomed their first son, Aarush Gajjar, on September 23, 2009. Heartiest Congratulations!!

Originally from St. Louis, Gabriel is in his final year of study at the University of Kentucky’s Landscape Architecture program, and joined the Urban College Team in Lexington as an intern for the Fall Semester. Drawing from his background in fine arts and his strong graphic skills, Gabe contributed in graphic and production support for various projects. Gabe, thank you for the hard work and wish you all the best for your future endeavors!!

Urban Collage contributed to winning over $4 million in grants for the housing authorities of Little Rock (AR) and Rome (GA) under the Capital Fund Recovery Competition program. Urban Collage also collaborated with the Little Rock Housing Authority, the City of Little Rock, and other affordable housing professionals to complete a comprehensive revitalization program for several inner-city neighborhoods under the ARRA Neighborhood Stabilization Program. Other successes for Urban Collage clients include a total of $25.8 million for the Housing Authorities of Columbia (SC), Wilson (NC), Fayetteville (NC) Metro, and Savannah (GA).

The Lexington Distillery District finally received the state approval for a TIF amount of $45 million in October 2009. The Distillery District is one of the first in Lexington to seek Tax Increment Financing and had received unanimous support by the Urban County Council who had approved the plans to help revitalize Manchester Street on December 2008. Manchester Street is heavily industrial, characterized by a tow yard, rail yard, decrepit infrastructure, and old warehouses. The plan calls for revitalization of many of the interesting and historic buildings as well as residential, commercial and mixed-use infill development.

The Midtown Alliance’s Cityscapes Program, which Urban Collage has helped to manage since 2001, recently won a PEDS (Pedestrians Educating Drivers on Safety) Golden Shoe Award for the “Peachtree Street Road Diet.” The Peachtree Street streetscape project, now about to begin its third phase of implementation, has helped to transform Atlanta’s signature street into a vibrant, pedestrian-friendly mixed-use corridor.

In late 2007, Associate Matt Cherry performed some pro-bono work for the Atlanta Downtown Neighborhood Association, creating design concepts to revitalize Barbara Asher Square (aka Broad Street Plaza). The process engaged both city officials and the Five Points Task force in addressing this problem area in Downtown Atlanta, while making headlines in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and The New York Times. It has now been recently announced that Central Atlanta Progress has secured federal stimulus funds to transform the area with various lighting, paver, planter and landscaping upgrades.