APA Wisconsin Announces 2024 Planning Excellence Award Recipients

October 30, 2024

Imagine 2024: La Cross Downtown Plan, developed in partnership with RDG, has been recognized for outstanding achievement and innovation in planning.

The Wisconsin Chapter of the American Planning Association (APA-WI) recently announced its 2024 chapter awards, recognizing the Imagine 2040: La Crosse Downtown Plan with an Economic Development Planning Award. The award is part of APA-WI’s annual awards program and acknowledges a project that strives to transform economies and stimulate economic development through originality and innovation, integration with other planning efforts or initiatives and effective implementation and results. Representatives from RDG Planning & Design, which worked with the city to develop the plan, were on hand to jointly accept the award during a ceremony on Thursday, September 12, 2024, in Madison, Wisconsin.

In addition to RDG, La Crosse, Wisconsin partnered with The Downtown Mainstreet, Inc., La Crosse County and Neighborhood Planners, LLC. to develop Imagine 2040: La Crosse Downtown Plan. The plan identifies initiatives for the next 20 years in the city’s downtown, creating a vision for the community and region to remain vital and generate the energy to attract creative talent, jobs and new investment.

RDG's Cory Scott accepts the Economic Development Planning Award.

Having a robust engagement process was paramount, even during a time of masks and social distancing. The process, led by planners, focused on building relationships and listening to as many voices as possible. Input from more than 80 meetings, including many virtual and small group activity events, allowed for increased community engagement.

Several elements from the plan have been implemented, including enhanced connections to the riverfront, a cycle track, bicycle facilities, and parklets and street cafes.

Since 1992 the city of LaCrosse, Wisconsin and Downtown Main Street Inc. have worked together to plan for the future of LaCrosse’s downtown. A previous downtown plan, authored in the early 2000s, guided the community through market changes, new developments and economic pressures. In the years following, the city campaigned to revisit the downtown plan and, in 2020, mobilized resources to update the plan. Due to the impacts of the pandemic, RDG had to adapt the engagement process, introducing alternate approaches to public engagement that resulted in increased dialogue with stakeholders and the community. The final plan represents a broad spectrum of recommendations organized around five themes, each capturing a vision for the future of downtown: Market for Development, Network of Strong Neighborhoods, A Connected City, Destination for All People and Confluence of Nature.

The APA Wisconsin Planning Excellence awards are open to projects located in Wisconsin and that have included an APA-WI or an APA member throughout the planning process. For each award, a jury of planning professionals is selected from outside Wisconsin to recognize the advancements in the state’s planning efforts.

Written by Erin Van Zee, Communications Director

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