Rethink Our Streets - Downtown

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The Hastings community is fortunate to have such a vibrant downtown business district. Our Downtown boasts that nearly all of the storefronts are full of quality shopping, great dining, entertainment venues, and other local businesses. Downtown also hosts several community events, such as Do the Brew, Junk Street, and the Celebration of Lights each year. All of this makes Downtown Hastings the Heart of our community.

Over the last 10 years, nearly $20 million has been spent to improve the Downtown’s building facades, improve and expand businesses, and bring more than 100 new or renovated homes to the district. These improvements to private property have been transformative and have revitalized the historic center of Hastings for commerce and entertainment. Unfortunately, the spaces between the building facades, the public realm, haven’t kept up with the look and feel of our Downtown buildings. Rather than spend a long time talking, researching, and planning for what the streetscape should look like, community leaders are taking a unique and innovative approach to ReThink Our Streets and Imagine the Future of Downtown Hastings!

The ReThink Our Streets Project is designed to experiment with improvements to the streets and public spaces of Downtown in a quick and fun way. By spending the next nine months dreaming of what our streets can look like and then quickly making those dreams a reality through temporary, attractive, and safe improvements, programs, and events; Downtown businesses, community leaders, and City staff can learn what works and then design and implement permanent features in the upcoming years.

We want to thank our amazing supporters, including the Downtown Business Improvement District, Hastings Community Redevelopment Authority, Thor Development, the Hastings Economic Development Corporation, the Hastings Chamber of Commerce, Hastings Young Professionals, Leadership Hastings, the Hastings Community Foundation, and the City of Hastings.

We invite you to subscribe to this page to keep up on all of the projects and events happening on the Model Blocks. We also invite you to check out the various features below to share your stories and ideas on how Downtown Hastings can improve its public realm.

The Hastings community is fortunate to have such a vibrant downtown business district. Our Downtown boasts that nearly all of the storefronts are full of quality shopping, great dining, entertainment venues, and other local businesses. Downtown also hosts several community events, such as Do the Brew, Junk Street, and the Celebration of Lights each year. All of this makes Downtown Hastings the Heart of our community.

Over the last 10 years, nearly $20 million has been spent to improve the Downtown’s building facades, improve and expand businesses, and bring more than 100 new or renovated homes to the district. These improvements to private property have been transformative and have revitalized the historic center of Hastings for commerce and entertainment. Unfortunately, the spaces between the building facades, the public realm, haven’t kept up with the look and feel of our Downtown buildings. Rather than spend a long time talking, researching, and planning for what the streetscape should look like, community leaders are taking a unique and innovative approach to ReThink Our Streets and Imagine the Future of Downtown Hastings!

The ReThink Our Streets Project is designed to experiment with improvements to the streets and public spaces of Downtown in a quick and fun way. By spending the next nine months dreaming of what our streets can look like and then quickly making those dreams a reality through temporary, attractive, and safe improvements, programs, and events; Downtown businesses, community leaders, and City staff can learn what works and then design and implement permanent features in the upcoming years.

We want to thank our amazing supporters, including the Downtown Business Improvement District, Hastings Community Redevelopment Authority, Thor Development, the Hastings Economic Development Corporation, the Hastings Chamber of Commerce, Hastings Young Professionals, Leadership Hastings, the Hastings Community Foundation, and the City of Hastings.

We invite you to subscribe to this page to keep up on all of the projects and events happening on the Model Blocks. We also invite you to check out the various features below to share your stories and ideas on how Downtown Hastings can improve its public realm.

  • A Vision for Downtown Hastings

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    As part of the ReThink Our Streets project, the Project Team hired the talented services of Austin Arens, a landscape architect in the region, to take the community’s ideas and generate some visual representations of what Downtown could be.

    Click on the image below to see more images and renderings. These aerial images and 3D renders are intended to inspire all of us to ask how can we use the public spaces in between the buildings differently to make our central business more inviting, community-oriented, and a special place for everyone to enjoy. The artistic crosswalks, spots for food trucks/farmers market/block party type events, and enhanced landscaping and hardscaping are drawn to give a different look and feel to Downtown Hastings.

    We are looking forward to implementing some of these on a trial basis this summer and fall. If you have any feedback, ideas on how to implement some of these ideas on a temporary basis, or just want to help, we would love to hear from you! Please provide your thoughts in the "Ideas" tool on this project page.

    Please note, that these renderings are not construction drawings, but rather images to begin a conversation of the future of our Downtown and our community.


Page last updated: 24 Jun 2024, 02:57 PM