The City of Moose Jaw identified the need to create and adopt a comprehensive Downtown Local Area Plan (DLAP) with a focus on implementable action items in the short, medium and long-term.

B&A’s lead urban designers Sonny Tomic are currently preparing the DLAP to include project management, urban planning and design, heritage planning and community engagement. The Plan’s vision began with analysis of the existing physical and social structure (strengths and weaknesses) of the downtown, a field trip to engage administration, Council and key stakeholders. This work laid the foundation for a five day design charrette whereby the downtown residents, businesses, heritage and cultural groups, economic and tourism groups, and users of the downtown area were engaged; their ideas were collected and illustrated in a downtown storefront. After the charrette a presentation was made to the community of the accumulated and evolved ideas and thoughts. Currently Jeanie and Sonny are testing those ideas and working on implementation strategies as a part of preparing a draft Plan that will be shared with the community in the Fall 2016 and further refined for Council approval. As a part of the testing, B&A is supporting current challenges with development and heritage conservation as case studies which will be a part of the Downtown Local Area Plan.

Downtown Moose Jaw has a significant number of heritage buildings and was a part of a previous Main Street Program.  B&A’s work will include policy and guidelines to preserve and enhance the historic character or the community while providing the implementation tools for infill and new development.