Webb City residents to get first look at downtown plan

February 19, 2008 09:40 pm

— By Melissa Dunson
mdunson@joplinglobe.com
WEBB CITY, Mo. — Residents will get their first glimpse of Webb City’s possible future on Friday.
Ten Drury University architecture students who descended on the downtown on Feb. 2 will be back to present their conceptual drawings for Main Street’s makeover.
Chuck Surface, Webb City director of economic development, said anyone who is interested in Webb City, its downtown or Route 66 history might want to attend the meeting at 2 p.m. Friday in the council chambers at City Hall, 200 S. Main St.
“We don’t just want downtown folks, and merchants and property owners, but also the general public to come,” Surface said. “There are a lot of people interested in the downtown area.”
The presentation will feature a room full of renderings for the city’s potential face-lift, Surface said.
“I’ve seen a little bit of what they’re proposing for the Route 66 theme, and everybody I’ve shown it to has loved it,” he said.
The fourth-year architecture students were in Webb City taking photographs and measurements. The students were hired by the city for $4,500 to provide a vision for capital projects in the next 15 to 20 years. That vision will include drawings of what the streetscape could look like; how the city could modify facades; recommendations for the design of signs, plantings and benches; and possible solutions for the parking problem along Main Street and its side streets.
Over the past 20 years, Drury’s architecture students have done 75 similar projects. Last year, they helped design streetscapes for Lamar and Greenfield.

Next step

Chuck Surface, Webb City director of economic development, expects the students from Drury University to make a final report to the public sometime in May.