Efforts by the City of Las Cruces to revitalize the downtown area, with focus on the project to convert Church and Water streets to two-way traffic, is the subject of an article featured in the current publication of the El Paso Chapter of the Texas Society of Professional Engineers newsletter. The article was also published as a National Engineers Week supplement in El Paso Inc., a weekly newspaper.
The article, titled the “City of Las Cruces Succeeds in Mission to Revitalize Downtown Area,” was written by Eduardo Hernandez, a professional engineer with Parkhill, Smith and Cooper, Inc., a 75-year old engineering firm that has an office in Las Cruces. The article is in the February 16 to February 22 edition of the newsletter, and can be read online here.
“The revitalization project for Downtown Las Cruces, at least 14 years in the making, has created a renaissance in the center of the city, changing a one-way street system into a two-way traffic pattern and creating a family friendly, appealing destination,” the article states. “The challenge was to get people to come to the downtown area instead of passing by it. The vision was to make this a destination and revitalize the city’s core, spur economic vitality, and instill community pride.”
Parkhill, Smith and Cooper, Inc. was a consultant on the final phase of downtown revitalization. That phase included the conversion to two-way traffic on Church and Water streets, and the construction of several “callecitas,” small roadways primarily designed for pedestrian traffic and as public gathering places, throughout downtown Las Cruces.
The article also emphasized an extensive collaborative effort to shape and implement improvements to revitalize downtown Las Cruces. More than a decade of master planning, public involvement, coordination with numerous stakeholders, traffic studies, regional growth studies and pedestrian walkability reports indicated that the one-way to two-way conversion would spur revitalization of downtown Las Cruces.
“The design team consisted of multiple disciplines, including the City of Las Cruces Public Works staff, City planners, transportation and traffic engineers, landscape architects, and architects,” said a portion of the article. “Consulting and architectural/engineering firms such as Parkhill, Smith & Cooper, Inc.; Bohannan Huston Inc.; Sites Southwest; and Hartman + Majewski Design Group and many others participated in the revitalization of downtown. Christopher B. Leinbergers, a distinguished scholar and research professor with the Center for Real Estate & Urban Analysis, was also part of the design and concept team.”
The $13.4 million project to convert Church and Water streets to two-way traffic began in June 2017 and was completed in June 2019.
Information about Las Cruces downtown revitalization is available online at: www.las-cruces.org/1517/Downtown-Plans-Studies. Information about the Church and Water streets two-way conversion project can be found online at: www.las-cruces.org/1512/Church-Water-Two-Way-Conversion.