AIA 150 BLUEPRINT FOR AMERICA INITIATIVE
AIA Nebraska Spearheads “The Flatwater Metroplex: Envisioning Regional Design”

by Russell Boniface
Associate Editor

How do you . . . design a Blueprint for America Initiative for your locality?

Summary: As part of the AIA 150 Blueprint for America Initiatives, AIA Nebraska has proposed “The Flatwater Metroplex: Envisioning Regional Design.” The Flatwater Metroplex is a 3,000-square-mile region encompassing 119 communities, 16 counties, and 60 miles around the metro areas of Omaha and Lincoln, Neb., and Council Bluffs, Iowa. The Flatwater Metroplex, however, is challenged by conflicting political jurisdictions that can’t agree on infrastructure growth patterns, economic goals, and planning. The challenge is heightened with the expectation that the region’s population will double in 40 years, underscoring the imperative to preserve the region’s rich agriculture and sustainability principles.

The topography of the region known as the Flatwater Metroplex is agriculturally fertile, consisting of bluffs, tree-lined rivers and watersheds, prairies, and rolling hills. The region’s three major cities—Omaha, Lincoln, and Council Bluffs, Iowa—have a current population of 1.1 million, which is projected to exceed 2 million by the Year 2050. Despite political, economical, population, and planning obstacles, AIA Nebraska believes its proposed Flatwater Metroplex design can take advantage of the region’s natural assets, including two major rivers, to absorb growth and create a green environment. At the heart of the issue, however, are the growth and sustainability along the region’s I-80 corridor, a 50-mile, six-lane corridor, and how the corridor’s communities will preserve the landscape but still finance and manage its growing infrastructure and future transportation.

AIA Nebraska worked with the Omaha-based Joslyn Castle Institute for Sustainable Communities to hold several public planning workshops that included architects; landscape architects; green building experts; developers; city, state, and local governments and agencies; non-governmental organizations; nonprofits; and community groups.

Six charrettes held at the same time
The workshops led to six charrettes in one major “visioning session” consisting of 150 attendees, all coming together to consider AIA Nebraska’s regional redevelopment initiative. The six charrettes were held in September 2006 at the Strategic Air & Space Museum in Ashland, Neb. The charrettes were held in conjunction with the AIA Central States Regional Conference. George M. Crandall, FAIA, principal of Portland-based Crandall Arambula and planner with AIA Nebraska, gave a keynote address before the charrette convened; afterwards, Crandall presented the charrette results at the opening session of the conference. Cecil Steward, FAIA, president and CEO of the Joslyn Castle Institute for Sustainable Communities, also spoke at the event.

The six charrettes, held in the Strategic Air & Space Museum restoration hanger, focused on the region’s growth trends and sustainable principles. The charrettes focused on six prototype sites:

• Urban core
• Near-core neighborhoods
• Regional shopping centers
• New suburbs as conservation communities
• Regional community
• An interstate highway corridor.

The I-80 Interstate Highway Corridor charrette was the largest of all six, with nearly 40 participants.

Diverse stakeholders respond to AIA Nebraska’s call to action
“It was a full day of events,” recalls Sara A. Kay, executive director, AIA Nebraska. “We were pleased to have such a great response from city officials, including the mayor from Lincoln. We received a lot of media attention. The planning and the charrettes were a team effort among members and nonmembers.”

Larry Jacobsen, AIA, president elect, AIA Nebraska, says the charrettes were designed to see how the chapter’s regional design might fit by studying specific towns and cities in Nebraska. “The idea for the regional design and a day-long charrette came from AIA 150. There was quite a bit of research before the charrettes. We developed a framework of what the regional design could be and picked separate environments to study, including inner-city and urban development in Omaha and downtown Lincoln; suburban development in Bennington; a community called Ashland, which is in between Omaha and Lincoln; an old shopping center in Fremont; and the I-80 Interstate Corridor. Each charrette was led by AIA member groups. Each charrette took on a life of its own.

“We had a wide spectrum of folks—architects, community officials, mayors, county and district representatives, owners of shopping centers, developers, eco-development organizations, the Nebraska zone commission, and University of Nebraska students who did a lot of recording. We were pleasantly surprised.” Adds Kay: "No one had a divergent agenda.”

Infrastructure keeping pace with growth
The I-80 Interstate Highway Corridor charrette—the most heavily attended, with nearly 40 participants—examined growth over the next 40 years along a 50-mile corridor linking the two Nebraska cities. Its focus was on interchanges, sustainability needs, environmental challenges, funding, an alternative transit system such as passenger rail, uniform development codes and standards, and the need for a comprehensive and coordinated development plan. “Everyone was concerned I-80 would get developed unplanned,” Jacobsen notes. “It’s a beautiful valley that we want to preserve.”

Recommendations; final report
The data from the charrettes was turned into a PowerPoint data presentation, and a three-year plan called “The Flatwater Metroplex” was developed out of several public planning workshops. The workshops yielded recommendations, including avoiding development along freeways; reviewing communities in the path of growth; considering protection for land, water, and other natural resources; distribution of housing density and mixed uses in suburbs; shopping malls as mixed-use transit hubs; enhancing public green spaces; and encouraging sustainability in building types, materials, and transit options.

AIA Nebraska, working with the Joslyn Castle Institute for Sustainable Communities and the Nebraska Innovation Zone Commission, prepared a final report, “Envisioning Regional Design: The Flatwater Metroplex Report.” (Click here.)

”We submitted the final report to state senators, who were quite impressed,” says Kay.

Discussions ongoing
“It was important to get public opinion,” she adds.” Architecture can be a solution to this overall process.”

AIA Nebraska members and regional stakeholders are still involved in discussions relating to various projects linking to AIA Nebraska’s Flatwater Metroplex development design plan. Kay concludes: “It was so controversial, but we probably will have to move fast. If anyone can make an impact it will be us.