New 'Design Excellence Overlay' Aims to Inspire New Development in Missoula

The city of Missoula professes a strategy of "focusing inward" when it comes to growth and development. A new 'Design Excellence Overlay' will help achieve more goals toward that strategy in the city's downtown.

1 minute read

October 18, 2018, 9:00 AM PDT

By James Brasuell @CasualBrasuell


Missoula

Keegan Connell / Shutterstock

"Efforts to shape the next iteration of Missoula’s built environment took a step forward on Tuesday with the unveiling of new design standards intended to add incentives to better urban architecture and make wiser use of land within the city’s core," reports Martin Kidston.

Missoula's new 'Design Excellence Overlay' would apply in several neighborhoods in the downtown area, including the Brooks, Russell, Broadway and Reserve Street corridors. The design guidelines organizes those corridors into three sections: inner core, outer core and the northern district.

Missoula officials are hoping the new design overlay inspires more design creativity in new developments. Kidston explains how:

Depending on the district, the overlay sets guidelines for a number of features, such as placement of a building on the street, vertical scale, facade and window treatments, and building articulation, or the amount a structure is required to “step back” based upon its height.

The standards also reduce certain barriers to better land use, such as parking and landscaping requirements.

Tuesday, October 16, 2018 in Missoula Current

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I love the variety of courses, many practical, and all richly illustrated. They have inspired many ideas that I've applied in practice, and in my own teaching.

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