Davenport Companies/MGM Springfield
When helping MGM Springfield create its vision for an urban casino, Form + Place explored the project’s role in defining a new entertainment district for the city. This included understanding its relationship to Main Street and the series of ground floor uses surrounding the mixed-use gaming and entertainment venue.
Main Street is downtown Springfield’s commercial backbone. The corridor links important cultural, civic and economic pillars of the community, which required MGM Springfield to be strategic in how it engaged with the existing spaces. From a placemaking perspective, understanding the variety of urban pocket parks, sidewalk environments and building common area is critical to developing an approach to creating an integrated district.
Springfield has a hierarchy of urban spaces that have the potential to support a range of active and passive uses. Downtown is characterized by a mix of historic properties, modern high-rises and remnants of Springfield’s industrial past. This includes a Main Street corridor populated with low- and mid-rise brick buildings with ground-floor retail that in many locations lack a continuity of storefronts. New development can play an important role in infilling these gaps.
MGM and their partners focused on creating an active street-level experience, featuring restaurants, coffee shops and retail that complement existing locally-owned commercial space.
Adjacent to the casino, Form + Place produced planning studies for Davenport Square, a mixed-use project with outdoor dining, retail, medical office and daycare facilities. This infill project occupies the city block across from MGM’s outdoor plaza and will further encourage pedestrian activity along Main Street by revitalizing a section of the city that was impacted by a tornado in 2011.