Envisioning a walkable Monroe Road

PlanCharlotte.org is asking readers to nominate spots in the Charlotte region that need a design makeover. (See our first installment in this series here and last week’s installment here.)

Urban designers Keihly Moore and Alex Borisenko have launched a website, www.completeblocks.com, where they’re proposing a series of urban design retrofits, many of them nominated by readers.

So far, we’ve highlighted places off Independence Boulevard, in Davidson, South Boulevard, as well as spots in Plaza Midwood, the Seventh Street bridge over Interstate 277, and South Church Street next to the new Romare Bearden Park. This week’s reimagined place adds urban accesibility to a suburban stretch of Monroe Road in southeast Charlotte, where a mixed-use redevelopment project is being built.

This week’s retrofit

In its current state, Monroe Road is a wide, 4-lane road with little infrastructure for pedestrians or bicyclists. A $75 million redevelopment project by Goode Properties will soon replace the 20-acre Silver Oak apartment complex with 260 apartments and 100,000 square-feet of retail and restaurant space. In this week’s retrofit, Alex Borisenko says the redevelopment project provides an opportunity to create a safer and more attractive street. Borisenko proposes a planted median for safer crossing and on-street parking to encourage lower speeds. Where today no sidewalk exists, a multi-use path could make biking and walking easier in the re-imagined development.