Downtown Master Plan Beginning

Don Monty

Role of the Downtown Advisory Committee

The City of Carbondale is embarking on a project to develop a Downtown Master Plan. The principal roles of the Downtown Master Plan Advisory Committee (DAC) are to give overall guidance to the process and to assure ample public participation in the development of the Downtown Master Plan (the Downtown Plan). 

Consulting Firm & Subcontractors

Most of the work to prepare the Downtown Plan will be done by a consulting firm and its subcontractors hired by the City. City staff will provide two different kinds of support. The first is gathering technical information to help the consultant. The second is to provide technical information, advice, and staff assistance to the Advisory Committee. View our Role of the Downtown Advisory Committee page for more details.

Jack Langowski

Notes from the Chair

The committee is up and running, and we will soon begin a series of public meetings that will include an opportunity for everyone to provide good ideas for consideration. The downtown is currently not inviting, lacks a cohesive character, and needs direction. That's where you come in. This is your opportunity to give us your input and we are waiting to hear from you! Email your ideas to Downtown Master Plan. In the future, you will find notices of upcoming meetings, minutes, and related announcements. Check-in with the site to get current with our progress.

Jack Langowski, Chair, DAC

Round House

Maps & Aerial Photos of Downtown Development

View the detailed development of Downtown Carbondale with the use of Aerial Photos and Sanborn Maps. the Tax Increment Financing Districts 1 and 2 are shown.

Photo Gallery of Downtown

These photographs of businesses and scenes along Illinois and University Avenue were made in July of 2014. 

1930s & 1940s

Many of the photos evoke the glamorous postcards of the 1930s and 1940s when travelers wrote home about their exciting trips. Of course, the photos were highly selective, emphasizing the beauty and robust enterprises of the towns while leaving aside the problems faced by the residents.

However, idealized images give us a lens to view the downtown and imagine what it can be. View our gallery of historic downtown.

Enhanced & Revitalized

It was the hard work and imagination of the business owners, governmental bodies and citizen's groups who made these individual buildings and streetscapes as handsome or as eccentric as they appear. They will be the leaders in the effort to enhance and revitalize our Downtown. View our current gallery of downtown.

Copyright

Photo Galleries Copyright D. Gorton and SIU Morris Library.

Carbondale Main Strip in the Past

History of the Railroad & Its Effects on the Downtown

Recollections from former City Manager, Jeff Doherty, commentary from Mary Rae McPherson along with photos of the Railway development in Carbondale. Photo Courtesy of SIU Morris Library.