City unveils downtown 3D model prototype to aid planning and public engagement

The city presented an in‑progress downtown 3D model designed to help residents, designers and developers visualize approved projects and study how new buildings fit into the existing urban fabric.

Barrett Armstrong, the city's senior urban designer (named in the meeting), said the project began in 2023 and the city partnered this year with Seaman Whiteside to build two versions: a lightweight model that covers the entire city and a high‑resolution, tiled downtown model that users can download in manageable grid tiles. The high‑resolution option will be available in two forms — a textured, Google Earth–style version and a cleaner "white box" aerial that is updated regularly.

The model is intended to be publicly accessible through the city's website and showcased in a Civic Design Center; developers could download tiles, incorporate their designs for review and submit updated tiles for staff to maintain the shared model. Barrett said the team is documenting file‑transfer procedures, metadata standards and annual update processes and is coordinating with IT to ensure safe file exchange and sufficient hardware capacity.

Council members asked whether the model could run scenario analyses (traffic or pedestrian modeling) and what metadata would be available when clicking on a building. Barrett said scenario analysis is not a built‑in capability of the current model but noted the vendor's products are being evaluated for future functionality; approved buildings and key metadata (zoning layer, square footage and tree GIS layers) can be integrated as layers.

Council members praised the tile strategy and said a public, downloadable model will help residents better understand the scale of projects such as the Gateway project or Canvas tower. Barrett closed with a short fly‑through demo and staff said more will be shared on social media and at the Civic Design Center. The meeting moved to an executive session after the presentation.