The area shown in the red circle above is the subject in question - as part of the Museum Place development, a public plaza is will be constructed at the reworked intersection of West 7th Street and Arch Adams (Map). How can a plaza occupy the middle of a street? Read on and find out - it’s an interesting bit of urban design.

The problem is thus - how to create a large public space in the development, while not taking too much room from the buildings themselves? You could certainly close off a street to do so, but you’d have to close off a smaller street, and it’s likely to be too out-of-the-way to get much use. No, the plaza needs to be the heart of the development. That means 7th Street - but you can’t permanently close off 7th. It’s too crucial to the connectivity of the area. A way had to be found to create a large public space that could be closed for events but left open to car traffic the rest of the time - while still slowing traffic enough that people would not feel intimidated by the sometimes speedy pace of cars on 7th.

Finally, an ingenious solution was devised. [Read more]