City Unveils Commercial Concept Plan

Swift Current and area residents were invited to an open house on the development of the city's Hillcrest Highway Commercial Area Plan Thursday to review the plan and give feedback.

The city is working on a comprehensive plan for the land located east of Memorial Drive, North of Paterson Drive and across from the Credit Union iplex that will be used for nature, parks, paths and commercial land.

"I think it's going to be a very exciting project for Swift Current," said Anne Huizinga, Commercial Planner with Focus Corp. "I think that this is the kind of place where people will want to spend time. I know that in Swift Current there's a lot of people that really enjoy walking and enjoy being outside and living life to the fullest and I think that this will be an opportunity to really help with that.

"What initially got us focused on more of a pedestrian area in talks with the city we originally weren't sure what we were gonna look at with the property and as we've delved deeper into what the needs were connectivity became a key point because there's a lot of places that are hard to get to and we wanted to make sure that it was going to be a fully integrated site," said Huizinga. "One of the streets we've designed can be easily cordoned off and used for either street festivals or farmers markets. We've really tried to keep it an integrated system where cars are permitted by pedestrians are really the focus of the consideration."

The focus of the open house was to get the feedback from the public by showing the general planning framework and identify transportation and infrastructure improvements to accommodate the development. According to the feedback, the project is being welcomed with open arms by many residents.

"One of the critical things is that we're thinking of the future. So we're not just developing on the needs of now we wanna make sure that this is going to develop into an appropriate space that's really a value for the community well into the future," said Huizinga.

The 125 acres of land isn't being worked on just yet, the city says they are content with taking things slow when it comes to this project.

"The ultimate full build out of this conceptual design would be in the 20 year range. The city currently has some existing commercial properties but this is just planing for the future and having land ready to develop if the need arises" said Michael Ruus, Manager of Planning and Bylaw for the city.