2014.01.15 - Milliken Design Guidelines

Existing Conditions
Broad Street – Downtown Core
Chapter 2: Existing Conditions
Broad Street – Downtown
Core
Comprised of six blocks between Josephine Street
and Dorothy Street, Milliken’s Downtown Core is the
community civic and commercial center. Within the
Downtown Core, Broad Street is configured as a
traditional ‘Main Street’ with attached sidewalks,
on-street parallel parking, a continuous middle turn
lane and slower traffic speeds (30mph). Within this
portion of downtown, Broad Street has been
designed to be walkable and pedestrian-friendly,
with a mixture of shops, restaurants and civic
buildings providing goods, services and
entertainment for residents and visitors.
Land Use
There is a mixture of land use within the Downtown
core, including retail, restaurants, the Post Office,
the Town Hall and Police Station, service industries,
and parking lots/vacant parcels. Overall, the land
use mixture is broad, but the presence of a number
of vacant and undeveloped lots reduces the
impression that the downtown has a dense, vibrant
core.
Although many of the land use types are spread
throughout the Downtown Core, there is a
concentration of civic buildings along the
northeastern edge of Broad Street, roughly between
Grace Street and Ethel Avenue (2 blocks). The Post
Office and Grain Elevator are also adjacent to this
core civic area, and may be considered an extension
of Broad Street’s civic core. As part of the
Downtown Design Guidelines process, two
additional parcels within the civic core will be
redesigned – the Heritage House at Avilla Park, and
the Town Square. Redevelopment of the Town
Square, in particular, will provide an important
linkage between Town Hall and the Police Station.
Architecture
The architecture of Milliken’s Downtown Core is
eclectic and varied, representing the influences of
different time periods and organic growth patterns.
Although there are buildings that date to Milliken’s
early development, there are also modern
structures. The materiality of the buildings also
reflects the trends of varying time periods, with a
mixture of brick, stucco, steel and wood comprising
the majority of structures.
The majority of newer structures in the Downtown
Core are one-story, steel or wood buildings. The
older buildings are typically brick and two-story,
however, there are also some Victorian-influenced
one-story brick retail buildings that date to Milliken’s
early years.
Although there are architectural nods to Victorian
rural architectural vernacular, most of the older
downtown structures are very simple “Traditional
American Storefront” typology, with ground-floor
storefront windows, an upper façade, and a cornice
feature at the top of the building. For two-story
buildings, the upper façade includes double-hung
windows.
There are several newer, steel-clad structures
located within the Downtown Core. Largely used for
auto service stations, these buildings typically have
few windows facing the street, flat, unadorned
facades, and single-peaked roofs.
Both the Town Hall and Police Station are newer
structures that embrace a mixture of architectural
styles and materials. Both are one-story brick
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