The City of South Miami Selected the Plusurbia Design team for placemaking, branding and community planning and urban design services for the Hometown District. In early 2024 the City authorized the team to begin work with the Discovery, Multimodal Planning, Placemaking & Streetscape and Public and Stakeholder Engagement tasks of the scope of work.

Since its inception in 1992, the Hometown District has created an epicenter for activity in the city by providing a sense of identity and place, with a focus on a charming, walkable environment. Sunset Drive, the Main Street and heart of the district, is a destination where residents and visitors partake in outdoor dining and annual community events. Beyond the ongoing redevelopment activity in the district, as this area continues to grow and evolve, a question that remains in the forefront is if its physical infrastructure and placemaking elements meet the needs of those who live, work and visit the district.

The overall objective of this project is to strengthen the district as a desination for locals and visitors that provides mobility choices and helps foster places where people want to invest their time and money. Through this project, the project team completed a comprehensive existing conditions analsysis that provided a snapshot of the land use context, demographic and socio-economic characteristics, and an understanding of the transportation and traffic conditions in the district. This analysis led to the development of a summary of needs and opportunities that provided guidance to the team for the development of recommendations.

Following the existing conditions assessment, the project team set in motion various activities to advance the visioning & urban design and engagement efforts to tackle the following scope of work objectives:

• Development of area-wide recommendations and Sunset Dr corridor enhancements;

• Development of brand identity design alternatives for the district;

• Development of urban design vignettes for specific areas within the study area;

• Developement of streetscape alternatives for Sunset Dr. and an illustrative plan;

• Facilitate a community engagement process that allows stakeholders and residents to provide input during the design process;

Urbe Studio is supporting the Plusurbia Design team as deputy project manager and lead planner on all of the visioning and planning tasks.

For more information about this project: https://southmiamifl.gov/815/Hometown-District-Placemaking-Branding-a