Jonesboro, AR – JonesboroRightNow.com – Design Week for Plan Jonesboro kicked off Monday night as officials continue to gather public input regarding the city’s growth over the next 30 years.

During Design Week, a design team from DPZ CoDesign and Crafton Tull will work on-site to develop draft plans based on community input, with the public able to review them.

Several public input meetings and pop-up events are scheduled throughout the week, culminating in a closing event on Thursday evening. Public input meetings for Plan Jonesboro began in February.

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“As the input’s starting to be put out, they’re starting to draw plans and imagining from this input, what it can look like, what the city plans look like,” Lynette Hirsch, community engagement and marketing coordinator for the city, told JRN. “Then on Thursday, they’re gonna reveal what they found from the kickoff event all the way through this week.”

During Monday night’s session, members of the public stopped at various interactive stations that asked participants what kinds of recreational activities, activity centers, infrastructure, traffic changes, and more they’d like to see, as well as their hopes for the city.

“What we will have are very high-level concept plans, and so then after this week, we’ll leave with a more clear understanding of what ideas will be moving forward, and then after the Design Week, we’ll be going back and developing those ideas out further,” said Julie Kelso, vice president of planning at Crafton Tull.

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John-Michael Posey said he would like to see more outdoor activity in the city, as well as road improvements, such as a turning lane on Harrisburg Road and the filling of various potholes.

Even after Design Week ends, Hirsch said the city will still be collecting input and data until the fall, noting that there are a few more meetings scheduled for April, May, June, and July. Data collected during that time will be used to tweak plans.

“This week is a very small week in the whole process in terms of the timeline, but it is the most important part of the process,” said Camille Annette Cortes, project manager with DPZ CoDesign. “What we hear from the community this week is critical to building out the plan in this next year.”

For those who cannot attend the public input meetings, there is also an online survey. Click here to take the survey. The closing meeting for Plan Jonesboro is scheduled from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. at the Jonesboro “Y” Youth Community Center, located at 1421 W. Nettleton Ave.

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