The City of Harrisonburg and Harrisonburg Downtown Renaissance (HDR) launched Harrisonburg Downtown 2040, a community-driven plan for our beloved Downtown Harrisonburg, Virginia. The final plan is now available to the public and we encourage you to check it out!
[11.5MB] Harrisonburg Downtown 2040 FINAL PLAN
Here's how the process took shape:
To start, there were two main ways to weigh in and share your thoughts, ideas, hopes, and concerns about the future of Downtown:
The Harrisonburg Downtown 2040 Collaborative Map - Thank you to everyone who contributed to the online, interactive map that asked you to locate special places and place-specific ideas or issues/concerns in and around Downtown. Together, you contributed over 450 ideas and concerns regarding future change, as well as love notes to Harrisonburg past and present.
Explore the map - If you need assistance using this tool, please leave a message at 215-645-2145, and a member of our planning team will contact you.
Take-Out Menus! -If you supported a Downtown restaurant or brewery this spring, you might have received a Downtown 2040 take-out menu mini-survey. Together, you placed more than 170 “orders” for Downtown, which provided valuable insight into your priorities for growth, change, and preservation.
Help shape the plan’s strategies:
Next, it was time to see how the community’s insights and ideas would shape the future of Downtown. In July 2021, Downtown 2040 hosted a series of pop-ups across Downtown - from happy hour to coffee hour, South Downtown to North Downtown and Court Square in between! The planning team presented some strategies for the future, and more than 150 people stopped by to catch up on the planning process and weigh in on the ideas. For those that missed the pop-ups, an online survey was available to answer the same questions posed at the pop-ups.
The plan was presented to the Harrisonburg City Council before being approved and put into action.