Dekalb 4th Street Revitalization

Project Info:

H+B provided a master plan for the sustainable redevelopment of the Fourth Street corridor south of downtown DeKalb. The area suffers from deteriorating businesses, a random mix of businesses and residences, a vacated contaminated “brownfield”, automobile salvage yard and numerous conflicts between automobile traffic and school students. There are two elementary schools, a middle school and high school all located along this corridor. The master plan provided by the H+B team was aimed at providing significant improvements in economic, social, and environmental conditions. It included developing safe routes to schools, innovative stormwater practices, and traffic calming strategies; including narrowing the highway, reducing the number of driving lanes, providing safe crossings, adding a bicycle lane, and separating sidewalks from the street edge. In addition form based zoning is recommended to provide the framework for attractive redevelopment as well as to provide safe entry and exiting of vehicular traffic from businesses.