In early March of 2012, I had the pleasure of attending an Open House for the Downtown Alleys in Colorado Springs. It was refreshing to be around other citizens with a great passion for Downtown. The work illustrated by HB&A was tremendous (I am actually still holding out for a guest blog post from HB&A for this blog). While I cannot wait for this get implemented, there is the helpless sense on the project for me personally. The helplessness sense is due to a lack of the ability to assist financially, which is really what is needed right now for the Alleys… So, of course, I look to something that can be done in conjunction with the alleys… Tactical Urbanism is attainable…
“Short Term Action. Long Term Change.”
The tag line of the book Tactical Urbanism, written by the Street Plans Collaborative and the Next Generation of New Urbanists, is fitting to what we were talking about. The words are inspirational, enabling everyday citizens to make change in a community that may have otherwise considered change impossible without powerful developers and politicians.
During the Open House at HB&A, I was thrilled to have met Sandra Vanderstoep. She began to make statements such as filling in the voids in our downtown, and comments about Food Trucks. It was very good timing, because just days before that I had a few conversations with others about concentrating food trucks downtown and elsewhere on Twitter. It was as if Sandy was reading my mind, or my Twitter feed. Sandy and I decided at this point that we were going to make something happen… and soon… as I quickly explained to her the ideas of tactical urbanism, otherwise known as guerrilla urbanism or DIY urbanism.
We reconvened a few days later and assembled a team that could help make a Downtown Food Truck pod a reality. The team initially consisted of Sandy, Aaron Briggs of HB&A, Mark Tremmel of Tremmel Design Group, Andrea Barker of HB&A, and myself.
A preferred site was identified and discussions have since been underway with both the City and the landowner of the property. We are anticipating a start date in early June, but are still wrapping up the details. The plan is to lease the frontage of a parking lot, directly in the heart of Downtown, at Tejon & Pikes Peak. The site was selected because it will help fill a major void in the Streetwall downtown and there is a precedence of food carts currently in the right-of-way. An LLC is in place for doing business as Curbside Cuisine Colorado Springs that will be the entity that accepts monthly rent from the Food Vendors. This LLC will also operate as the single-point of contact for the landowner, our hopes are that this land owner is well-respected businessman, Chris Jenkins of Nor’Wood. His parking lot site is ideally located on Tejon near the intersection of Pikes Peak and Tejon, the heart of Downtown. The LLC will also assist with the vendors in maintaining a clean plaza and future site improvements.
A conceptual sketch of the Food Vendors convened in an existing parking lot. Sketch provided by EV Studio Planning, LLC. Background files provided through Google 3D Warehouse by AIA Colorado South.
The goal of the LLC, which will essentially operate as non-profit rolling any revenue into improvements, is to give a jump-start to Downtown Colorado Springs. Mark, Aaron and I will serve as Advisory Board Members to the LLC which is owned and operated by Sandy. We will also be joined by Jewels of SuperFine Design. Jewels came up with the name “Curbside Cuisine” and our logo seen below.
The logo for Curbside Cuisine was designed by Jewels of SuperFine Design.
I am incredibly excited for Curbside Cuisine to take root Downtown, not only because of the great vendors who are interested, but because it will provide an example in Colorado Springs that positive change can occur without substantial private or public subsidy.
The following are related articles by the local newspapers:
Food Trucks unite for Curbside Cuisine: http://www.coloradosprings.com/articles/curbside-15143-downtown-food.html
Mobile-food court likely for Downtown: http://www.csindy.com/IndyBlog/archives/2012/05/24/mobile-food-court-likely-for-downtown
Mobile-home: http://www.csindy.com/coloradosprings/mobile-home/Content?oid=2480224
