Red Lodge community lays out vision for North Community Entrance: housing, green space and walkability

Kansas State University technical-assistance staff on Tuesday summarized nearly a year of community engagement and design options for Red Lodge’s North Community Entrance Urban Renewal District, a roughly 160-acre area that presenters said residents currently view as “underutilized, ugly, hodgepodge.” Kate Lucas, who led the presentation for KSU’s Technical Assistance to Brownfields program, said survey and workshop feedback consistently prioritized a more welcoming gateway, increased green space, mixed-use and affordable housing, and improved multimodal connections.

The presentation encapsulated the project’s scope and the team’s outreach. "We asked respondents to describe how they currently perceive the URD," Lucas said, reading survey results that included words such as underutilized and hodgepodge. She said the team then held in-person workshops, met with students at Red Lodge High School, and issued an online baseline survey; results were largely consistent across methods.

KSU presented several concept plans ranging from lower-density townhome options to higher-density, two- to three-story mixed-use buildings along Broadway with residential units set behind ground-floor commercial or retail. Jeremy Fadness, contract planner for the city and a presenter with WWC Engineering, emphasized the URA’s facilitation role: "The urban renewal agency and city of Red Lodge are not developers," he said, explaining that tax-increment financing would be available to help pay public infrastructure if a private developer applies and the URA and city council approve.

Design strategies the team urged included breaking the Broadway corridor into smaller, walkable blocks with pedestrian crossings, hiding surface parking, and locating more civic or open spaces near the roadway to create a stronger gateway. The team also recommended prioritizing affordable or workforce housing to respond to repeated community comments that housing is a critical need.

Organizers distributed a resource road map listing potential funding sources—philanthropic, state and federal grants and loan programs—and said the plan’s implementation would depend on piecing together those resources. Lucas cautioned that the concepts are illustrative, not construction-ready: "None of it is design plans. None of it is assured," she said.

The meeting concluded with a hands-on placemaking exercise in which table groups laid out preferred improvements for a separate nearby site (the Rocky Fork area). Organizers said they will consolidate feedback within roughly four to six weeks and post slides and materials online for further review by the Urban Renewal Agency and the public.