Midtown’s TSW Honored by the American Planning Association

TSW, an Atlanta-based planning, architecture, and landscape architecture firm, has been honored for the work the firm did in partnership with the City of Kingsport, Tenn. to create a new master plan for the city. The Kingsport Master Plan has won the 2019 Vernon Deines Award for an Outstanding Small Town or Rural Plan, which is given annually by the American Planning Association’s Small Town and Rural Planning Division. The award recognizes exemplary projects for their contribution to planning excellence in small towns and rural communities.

The Downtown Kingsport Master Plan creates a unified vision to reinforce and magnify downtown Kingsport’s role as the economic and cultural heart of the community. The plan proposes $74 million in improvements, as well as over 320,000 square feet of new development and nearly 700 new residential units over the next 10 years. To read the plan, please visit www.downtownkingsportplan.com/documents.

Kingsport, Tenn. was established after the Revolutionary War and envisioned to be a master-planned city by famed landscape architect John Nolen. Like many American cities, over time, the downtown area became a less appealing place to live, due to loss of housing, greenspaces, services and employment. Over the past two decades, city leadership has worked to reverse the decline by implementing initiatives to connect the downtown to the rest of the city, beautify the center city and create a live, work, play, dining, shopping and entertainment district.

In 2017, the city hired a team of consultants to create a downtown master plan, consisting of Atlanta-based TSW, who led the planning process and made recommendations relating to land use, design, and the Academic Village; Urban 3 and Friction Shift of Asheville, NC to create a plan for economic development; and the local office of engineering firm Mattern & Craig to make recommendations on downtown Kingsport’s transportation network. The result of this comprehensive planning effort is a defined list of goals, recommended policies and projects relating to land use, transportation, economic development, arts and culture, and the Academic Village; as well as a framework plan that outlines new development and redevelopment for the city.

About the City of Kingsport

Founded in 1917, the City of Kingsport (pop. 53,000) is located on the Tennessee-Virginia border at the crossroads of I-81 and I26 near the geographic center of the eastern U.S. The city is widely known as a planned community, designed by renowned city planner John Nolen and wrapping around the foot of Bays Mountain – a 3,500 acre park, nature preserve, planetarium and observatory. Kingsport is recognized as an International Safe Community by the National Safety Council, a Healthier Tennessee community, and won the 2009 Harvard Innovations in American Government Award for its higher education initiatives. While many city names are duplicated throughout the U.S., there’s only one Kingsport – a fact that invokes community pride, known locally as the “Kingsport Spirit.” https://www.kingsporttn.gov

About TSW

TSW is a full-service planning, architecture and landscape architecture firm. The award-winning Atlanta-based company was founded in 1990 and specializes in sustainable community design, architecture and landscape architecture. TSW is a leader in the New Urbanist movement and employs a community planning and design process that links tradition and context with today’s cultural and environmental demands. Sustainable design is an integral part of all TSW work, from the master plan level to the individual building components. TSW’s staff members are LEED Accredited Professionals and their designs incorporate a range of ideas for progressive energy and resource saving solutions. www.tsw-design.com