Downtown plans to be unveiled

Time for the big unveil from Gehl.

Urban planners from the New York offices of Denmark-based Gehl Studio, who’ve been analyzing our goings and comings in West Palm Beach for the better part of a year, are set to present their ideas Monday for pilot projects to enliven downtown.

No sneak peaks. They want it to be a surprise. At 10 a.m. in City Hall, they’ll be rolling out their “public realm action plan,” with a halfdozen projects for the city commission to consider.

This mayor-commission work session in City Hall’s Flagler Gallery is open to the public — but without public comment. From 2 to 5 p.m., though, the display boards and talk will be open to everyone, with Gehl professionals around for the backand-forth.

The administration of Tony Doris Mayor Jeri Muoio is one that believes in studies and innovative, academic approaches to shaping the city. There was a walkability study. There’s a bike master plan in the works. A mobility study is looking at traffic and mass transit, in particular on congested Okeechobee Boulevard.

The Gehl concept is one the mayor picked up on a Knight Foundation-sponsored trip to Copenhagen in 2015, for a program on how to make cities more livable.

People from the architecture and urban planning firm subsequently came here and gave a presentation of some their past projects — including turning New York’s Time Square into a pedestrian plaza. They explained the efforts begin with getting to know a city through street surveys and gathering data, which leads to testing initiatives through pilot projects and then moving forward.

“The design of cities affects our behavior,” project manager Julia Day said in her presentation. “How we choose to spend time out- side, where we choose to walk, how we choose where to work. People do not behave as computer models predict.”

Phase I involved background research and getting to understand the city, its neighborhood groups, business leaders and other shareholders. In Phase 2, Gehl has been analyzing that data and designing programs to make West Palm’s public areas — streets, parks, waterfront, commercial areas — more alluring and fun.

And while the city works with Gehl, CityPlace’s owners also hired them, to rethink the shopping and dining property’s public areas and how they connect with downtown.

No word on how that’s going. Maybe we’ll find out Monday.