By Blair Tilson | Echo
You may have noticed the chapel's large window decal promoting the new campus center, but have you seen the 23 large concrete pots placed along Upland's Main Street or heard about the initiative to provide trails in town for biking and hiking?
Taylor isn't the only place making renovations around here. The town of Upland has new strategies up its sleeves to redevelop and boost the town's economy, development and sense of community.
These projects-and many others-are the byproduct of numerous small groups of committed citizens who are working together to fill the needs of the local community."Our Town Upland" is an organization that promotes teamwork among these groups. The organization's mission is to respond to community needs by seeking out the input of individuals and organizations. That way, the town continues to improve and grow.
Organization president Bill Wiley is furthering development by simply creating a more functional downtown, such as pedestrian-scale lighting and a tree-lined Main Street.
This initial effort to beautify the neighborhood has been dubbed the Upland Downtown Initiative, and has already seen changes. Completed plans include painting buildings, repairing store doorways and windows along Main Street and installing 23 pots filled with evergreen trees, ornamental grasses and "lollipop" trees. Two murals have also been painted to add to the aesthetic appeal of the downtown area.
The future of the town, however, is currently in the hands of the Steering Committee. Committee leader Chip Jaggers is working alongside a group of individuals to revitalize the master plan.
Jaggers reported in the March 4 Town Hall meeting that Taylor has offered the town the services of their architect firm of Browning, Day, Mullins and Dierdorf. They intend to use the information provided to them by the firm to refine, review and refocus their master planning of the town. The group hopes to have an outcome expectancy of what will be done in the next four years by August 19.
This outcome expectancy is better known as The Master Plan, a document that packages all growth objectives into tangible steps for action. This document is the end result and fifth phase of four other broken-down phases the Town Hall council has come up with for the development of the town.
The first phase aims to look at existing conditions and what has been done to date. This includes revisiting the 2010 charrette drawings Ball State University made as inspiration for what Main Street could look like.
"We had really great results from that (the charettes) but you need two things after the charrette is over. One is you need money to do the things you came up with and secondly you need leadership," Jaggers said.
The project faced challenges. As good as the drawings were in giving ideas for the town, without practical application, nothing could be done without additional help.
"For example, there was a recommendation in the charrette that we have beautiful gardening trees . . . but the idea didn't say this is the type of tree you need, this is how many trees you need and because it's a state highway, this is how far it has to sit back from the actual pavement."
This year, however, will be different. With Taylor's architecture firm offering their services, Upland is able to gain the information they need to realize the plans made four years ago.
These drawings will serve as a starting point for the Steering Committee as they update the plans into something the community would like to see implemented today.
The community's desire for change comes into play in the second phase, in the form of a Facebook page opinion survey. The community's needs are a priority-and its opinion about the town's direction will be discovered through feedback. Jaggers expects the Facebook survey to be put online in the next couple weeks.
And he wants student input, ideas and thoughts on what they would like to see in the town.
Once the survey results have been analyzed, the third phase will create an overall vision for Upland's direction, and the fourth step seeks to implement that vision into an action plan. Students, faculty and town residents can follow the steering committee's progress on the One Town Upland Facebook page.The Steering Committee and architecture firm is also working closely with a separate organization that has intentions of spurring big changes to Upland's economic development soon.
The Upland Area Greenway Association plans to create trails for recreational use in the town area. Greenway believes the trails provide a safer alternative to residents and students walking, running, rollerblading or cycling on narrow roads.
According to President Joe Pearson, the project will begin on Eighth Street, a common route for both the community and Taylor students. The planning should be completed by September with construction beginning in the fall. (Thumbnail photograph courtesy of Our Town Upland)
