Dearborn: Planners share more refined ideas for area around train station

July 03, 2013

Planners from MSU's School of Planning, Design and Constructionpresented a more refined idea for the area around Dearborn’s new passenger rail station, calling for more green spaces.

By Katie Hetrick
Press & Guide Newspapers

DEARBORN — Planners presented a more refined idea for the area around Dearborn’s new passenger rail station, calling for more green spaces, denser mixed-use development and pedestrian areas on both sides of the tracks.

The transit-oriented development plan has been in the works since last fall, but how or if the plans will become reality is unclear.

Wayne Beyea, with Michigan State University’s School of Planning, Design and Construction, said creating “Place Making” plans is always part imagination and dreaming about what an area could be. About 30 people attended Thursday’s presentation of the final TOD plan at the Ford Community & Performing Arts Center.

Dearborn’s plan has two main factors. It relies on connectivity between assets and districts and it needs denser mixed-use development.

“Without that density, some of these things won’t be able to happen,” Beyea said.

The plan calls for turning most of Newman Street from the train station west to Oakwood Boulevard into a pedestrian walkway with benches, landscaping and maybe even a splash fountain and open gathering space in the middle. Various mixed retail and residential buildings would line both sides of the walkway. Parking structures would be created just south of the train tracks.

“Successful transit-oriented development projects really bring together several of these components,” Beyea said.

Those components include higher density residential and retail space, all within a five or 10-minute walk of the station. The area also needs connectivity to places of employment and enjoyment such as The Henry Ford, Ford Motor Co., the Rouge River bikeway, University of Michigan-Dearborn and Oakwood Hospital and Medical Center.

“We saw an opportunity for this place to be just stellar in the region,” Beyea said.

The plan also calls for improving the appearance of Michigan Avenue near the station, said Warren Rauhe, director of the Small Town Design Initiative at MSU [and an SPDC Professor]. Signs and landscaping could be added directly in front of the station. A stoplight would protect pedestrians crossing on a brick or brick-like crosswalk, which would also feature landscaping, Rauhe said.

Buildings created in the area could tie into brick and stone signs in a Colonial Williamsburg style, Rauhe said.