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Rendering of South Main created by Dover, Kohl, and Partners

The Congress for the New Urbanism Colorado Chapter Organizing Committee announces a tour of The South Main Neighborhood in Buena Vista, Colorado. The tour will take place on August 2, 2008 with a tour at 11:00AM, lunch at 12:30PM and a slide show at 1:30PM.

South Main Tour Handout and Map

The South Main Neighborhood was designed by Dover, Kohl and Partners to extend historic downtown Buena Vista to the Arkansas River, site of a whitewater park for kayaking, rafting, fishing, hiking and biking. More than two acres of river corridor was donated to the town as a permanent public park, and Katie Selby Urban, co-founder of South Main, wrote and coordinated a grant with Great Outdoors Colorado and fundraised in the community to fund the whitewater park.

The property was once used as a trash dump, and pre-construction clean-up was extensive. The project began with a week-long public charrette process, which helped South Main garner a high level of community support. Co-founders and siblings, Jed and Katie (both in their 20’s at the time) led the project, their first, through the entitlement process, which was complete in one year. After another year of work on infrastructure and architectural reviews, vertical construction began in January 2007.

Currently there are 21 homes and businesses under construction. All homes are required to be certified through Built Green Colorado. The architectural review process, which was initially extensive due to the custom nature of all the homes. Such significant activity in a town of 2500 has sparked many conversations on land use and zoning and has helped influence smart growth in Chaffee County.

1. The April/May/June Issue of The Colorado Urbanist
2. Projects outside of Colorado
3. CNU Colorado Meeting June 17