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Consultants outline festival street, "ice ribbon" and small-scale arts village for Orem's Heart of Downtown
Summary
Consultants presented community feedback-based concepts for the Heart of Downtown arts district, emphasizing a park-centered festival street, a proposed 13,000-square-foot "ice ribbon" civic amenity and a compact arts village of small retail and live-work spaces.
Consultants working on Orem's Heart of Downtown plan presented community-feedback-informed concepts that position the park as the district's centerpiece, propose a festival street and an arts village product, and include a seasonal "ice ribbon" designed to serve as a year-round attraction.
"Our first phase really kicked off in January'... we're really using that public outreach in particular to help us understand what community members' desires are for community gathering," Jasmine, a project lead, told the council. The consultants said the process included stakeholder interviews, a district inventory and an outreach series at the park to gather preferences about public art, programming and park uses.
Design moves the consultants showed include shifting the central parking lot to the park's north edge to reduce the park's centerline split, establishing a hierarchy of pedestrian circulation and gateways, and proposing a Festival Street on 720 South that could be pedestrianized for events. The team proposed about 69 parking spaces moved north near the school, possible future structured parking, and circulation improvements to serve amphitheater events.
A prominent concept is an "ice ribbon" roughly 13,000 square feet of ice surface that would operate as a four-season amenity (ice in winter and a lower-season mode in summer) with rentable cabanas and a civic anchor building that could provide second-floor rentable venue space to capture revenue. "It's going to have a civic anchor with a rentable space on the second story that can support community gatherings," the team said.
The consultants presented precedents for small-scale retail and live-work units intended to support artists and creative entrepreneurs, and showed an illustrative program of about 20,000 square feet for the arts village. They proposed an implementation sequence and feasibility analysis with economic and traffic studies to follow; staff said refinements will be presented in August and a draft plan in October for council workshop and finalization in November.
No formal vote occurred. Staff said they will continue community engagement and return with refined plans and a workshop draft.
