Noel Visioning Comes Together During Meeting

Members of the Noel community attended the second in a series of community visioning meetings on Tuesday night.

The project, part of a partnership between Drury University and the University of Missouri Extension Service, has tasked a group of architecture students with envisioning where Noel could be in the next 15 to 20 years. Using community input from the first meeting, the students compiled their first presentations for Tuesday night. Community members were asked to look at each presentation and provide feedback so that students can further refine their ideas.

Lorie Howard said she liked an idea for bus and bike trails connecting Noel, Anderson and Pineville. She also favored extending the bus routes further south into Arkansas.

Angie Brewer said, “I really like the idea of expanding the walking trails and some sort of pedestrian bridge across the river, both for recreation and for people going to work and school. I like the idea of promoting Noel as a destination. It’s beautiful; it’s culturally rich. We have great campgrounds and the river.”

She also liked the ideas of having a community garden, expanding murals on Main Street and having a sculpture garden on Main Street, she said.

Denae Murphy said she liked the idea of a multi-use bridge.

Colton Connor explained a multi-use bridge would have buildings on it. It would have retail stores on the base level and residential and communal spaces on the upper levels. He added that the commercial level would have an all-glass front that could be lit at night to create a spectacle.

Connor also favored turning the Tyson lagoons into fish farms covered with some sort of fragrant vegetation. He said the lagoons should be looked at as an asset because the gases could be harvested from them and used for energy.

Other ideas included bringing greenery to Main Street, creating a community center, erecting a pedestrian bridge to Wilderness Island, building floodproof housing units and putting stilted rental cabins in flood plains.

Members of the community were given green and red stickers and were asked to indicate ideas they liked with a green dot and ideas they did not like with a red dot. They were also supplied with sticky notes to allow them to leave comments for the students. Students will use the feedback they received to further refine their suggestions for Noel.

The next community visioning meeting will be 6 p.m. Nov. 1 at the Short-Poynor room at the Noel Housing Authority.