Mt. Pleasant Visioning Committee identifies six improvement projects

MT. PLEASANT - The Mt. Pleasant Visioning Committee are honing in on six areas in the city where potential improvements can be made.

At a virtual meeting on Monday afternoon, the committee, who worked with Genus Landscape Architects, presented their design concepts to residents. The six project ideas included adding roadside plantings and signage to entrances into town by Highway 34 as well as North Broadway; transforming an alleyway adjacent to the main square into a pedestrian walkway; enhancing and adding trail systems throughout the city; and improving signage and aesthetics in various locations.

The community visioning project is a program sponsored by the Iowa Department of Transportation (DOT), Iowa State University Extension and Trees Forever. Each year, the program chooses ten communities across Iowa with populations under 10,000 and provides planners and designers to help develop improvement concepts and designs.

Kristi Ray, the executive vice president of the Mt. Pleasant Area Chamber Alliance, said the committee, composed of 24 members of the community, began working on ideas in November of last year. During the virtual meeting, Ray noted the process was simply to 'come up with some ideas [the city] might someday incorporate.”

'It was so much fun being able to take a breath and dream about what can be,” she added.

Though the program is funded by the DOT, Ray also noted studies done in preparation for the presentation showed the community did not have any major transportation issues, which is why priorities skewed more toward aesthetics.

During the meeting, Dylan Jones, an associate of Genus Landscape Architects presented rough drawings and concept photos of the ideas the committee discussed. Aesthetic additions and changes included adding historic lighting matching that of the downtown area along Highway 34 as well as introducing more landmarks and monuments to the west side of the downtown area.

The committee also expressed excitement at the idea of transforming an alleyway leading to the main square into a hub for art, which would promote more travel from the downtown area and Iowa Wesleyan University. Ray said the committee discussed including brick paintings and art on concrete.

'The whole point of this was not just to show alley art but to actually to make this more of a walkway from Central Park as far down as we can,” Ray explained.

Another idea Jones touched on was putting in a set of signs 'that all have a similar character” and matches the style of other signage the city already has. The signs would be highly visible and could mark entrances into the city. Jones also suggested various monuments touching on the history of the town, including paying homage to the Midwest Old Threshers Reunion.

Mike Heaton, a member of the visioning committee, said he loved the idea of sculptures and monuments, but felt the city would need to be 'really careful” when choosing which fixtures to install.

'We don't want to come across as we're living in the past. We have to have the sense that there's the past while also being innovative and living in the future, and so there's a fine line there with using old steam engines and things like that,” he said, 'Because people are going to drive in and automatically associate Mt. Pleasant with being old and we need that mix of both, in my opinion.”

Moving forward, Jones and Genus Landscape Architects will continue refining the concept drawings and ideas and will present again to the visioning committee before holding a public event for local residents in September. Residents are encouraged to provide input on the potential projects at https://iastate.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_3KGLuI0NQC9uxVP.