What Can Placemaking Accomplish for Downtown Largo?

Visual And Urban Design Strategies

Placemaking, along with the related branding and wayfinding strategies in Sections 4 and 5 of this report can help reinforce the design goals of the 2013 Largo Town Center Sector Plan

The 2013 Sector Plan establishes broad goals for the public realm, such as “walkable urbanism” and “environmentally and security conscious design.” The plan also provides a general diagram of future street and open space networks, and outlines general design criteria for street types, open space types, corner buildings and parking garages. It also identifies five locations in the Downtown Largo area for special design treatment.

Placemaking can bring these sector plan recommendations to fruition in many ways.

• Placemaking elements can help create a sense of human scale and walkability, contribute to the visual cues that help people navigate through downtown, and create a feeling of activity that makes it interesting to explore Downtown Largo.

• Special features at key locations can provide a sense of arrival and orientation, help differentiate distinct locations in Downtown Largo , and create memorable landmarks for Largo.

• General design standards, such as materials for landscapes, hardscapes, streetscapes and other civic features, can create a sense of continuity and connectivity and convey Downtown Largo’s identity and brand.

• Special treatments for the upper levels of parking garages can expand the existing goal to “relegate parking (surface or structured) behind buildings, masking it from the public realm.”

AUTHENTICITY, IDENTITY AND MEANING

Placemaking can convey stories about Largo’s past and inspire stories about it’s future, tapping into authentic meaning.

Placemaking projects can explore a variety of themes specific to Largo:

• Historical and cultural narratives

• Ecological and watershed characteristics

• Economic factors such as health care, global education, government and professional sports

While Downtown Largo is re-creating itself, placemaking can introduce new narratives through events, traditions or places shaped by the community to meet its current and future needs.

Place Activation

Placemaking can breathe life into Downtown Largo’s open spaces.

Place activation projects encourage people to experiment with public spaces to test ideas for locations and uses of public space. These projects demonstrate how underused spaces can be repurposed as public amenities. Community networks can evolve to create and sustain programming in these areas. These projects can be flexible and temporary, using a combination of events, ongoing programming, and temporary physical interventions, before investing capital improvements in these spaces.

ECONOMIC, ECOLOGICAL, SOCIAL CHANGE

Placemaking can increase people’s involvement in Downtown Largo’s future.

Downtown Largo is experiencing significant change. Placemaking projects can strengthen the community’s voice by helping them envision options for the future. In this context, placemaking activities can focus on issues of environmental sustainability, community health, cultural diversity, and social change. They also help develop transportation alternatives.

Community Networking And Resiliency

Placemaking can help build Downtown Largo’s social capital and community capacity.

While placemaking initiatives are often led by public agencies or non-profits, their success often relies on harnessing broader community resources such as grassroots organizations, major local institutions, and the business sector.

There are strong entities in Downtown Largo leading the public, private, civic, institutional, and business sectors. Placemaking projects strengthen their ability to address collaboratively the opportunities and challenges in the area.