Summary: With Interstate 26 complete from Asheville into Tennessee in 2006, AIA Asheville looked ahead to weaving the I-26 connector into the fabric of their fast-growing destination city. The result was their AIA Blueprint for America project, Bridging the French Broad River, to enhance the city’s beauty and livability.

In a video just posted on the AIA national component YouTube page AIA Asheville’s Alan McGuinn, AIA, interviews Asheville Mayor Terry Bellamy to discuss her perception of the success of the Blueprint project, which subsequently spawned the Asheville Design Center as a way to focus concerned citizens on how the connector could most effectively be integrated into the fabric of their city.

The AIA YouTube page brings the message to the world that architects offer tremendous value through the ability to focus their imagination on municipal planning—including local infrastructure projects—to foster community involvement and inform policymakers from the outset of their deliberations on what is possible.

AIA Asheville’s Blueprint project
At the outset, as AIA Asheville was deciding on their Blueprint for America project—a key element of the AIA150 celebration—members collected all existing community and North Carolina Department of Transportation plans for the proposed I-26 connector feeding into West Asheville and crossing the French Broad River into the downtown. They assembled a team of design professionals and developed a 3D topographical model of the project area, along with illustrations, graphics, and renderings to help the community visualize various possibilities and spur discussion. Two community design workshops studied the design of the initial proposal and suggested improvements. From 2006 through 2008, the Design Center helped develop a plan that saved as much as $150 million in land acquisition and roadway costs while creating opportunities for the downtown to grow toward the riverfront while connecting neighborhoods on both sides of the river.

The community development discussions called for a new I-26 double-deck bridge to cross close to downtown, diverting heavy traffic from the existing Smoky Park bridge and Patton Avenue, returning them to use by local traffic. Patton Avenue’s original intent was to be Asheville’s “mountain main street.” By bringing pedestrian, bicycle, and public transportation to a redesigned Patton Avenue, land parcels that had become isolated by highway traffic reconnected with the local street grid and brought what over years had degraded into right-of-way property back to public or private ownership for possible development.

Mayor Bellamy praises architects
“I’m proud of the work the Asheville Design Center has provided our community,” Bellamy tells McGuinn in the YouTube segment. Asheville is the hub of western North Carolina, she says. In its scenic mountain setting, tourism is a major business for the city, and the I-26 connector was an opportunity to invite people into the city in a way that would encourage them to stay and enjoy it. “People see the western gateway in all its glory, and it provides us a multi-modal solution,” she extols. “People want to see the green spaces, the mountains, and the vistas. People want to see something special.”

There were three goals the city council had in mind, Bellamy says. That the connector:

• Have a small footprint within the context of the city
• Is sustainable and have a positive, long-lasting impact on the community
• Blends with the local traffic.

“The AIA’s contribution is a model for the state and the rest of the country,” Bellamy says. Specifically, she praised AIA Asheville for bringing their process and ideas to the city council from the outset. Policymakers were engaged and informed, she says, because the architects did a good job of informing the city council as the project moved forward. Even if council members didn’t agree, they knew they were involved, as were their constituents. Architects and city residents from all walks of life and points of view had a place at the table to discuss how the connector project could make a positive and lasting impact on their community. “Architects have a lens that perhaps others don’t have,” Bellamy observes. They can see the beauty of the built environment, how it fits within the landscape, and then discover the opportunities that say: “This is Asheville,” she says.

To others across the country, Bellamy advises other communities and elected officials to see their cities as a canvas. Architects can see a portrait and commit those visions to paper. Mayors have their own visions as well, she says of her experience with the Asheville Design Center planning process, and this is a way to make those visions merge. “We want a beautiful community, and we can do it together. Is it easy? No. But it is possible,” she says, pointing to the consensus process as a launching pad for good things to happen. And yet, it will take hits, she concludes. If it is good, though, it will survive those hits and grow.