05/12/2026
Another great tour tomorrow!Explore recent housing, mixed-use, and public space projects in Fayetteville’s downtown district with long-time New Urbanists—architect Rob Sharp and code writer Mary Madden, former and current Fayetteville Planning Commissioners, respectively. The downtown has several distinct neighborhood geographies, having both a town square and a main street, while the University of Arkansas borders the downtown’s western edge. The tour will see a variety of infill projects completed over the past 20 years, fulfilling the key goals of the 2004 Downtown Master Plan (an effort led by Dover Kohl & Partners.) The tour will consider the relationship between recent ordinance changes (governing parking, land development, and building construction) and key public investments, in enabling, encouraging, or obstructing mixed-use residential development in downtown. In addition to viewing some adaptive re-use and streetscape improvements, tour highlights will include visits to several of Sharp’s mixed-use projects throughout the downtown district on Block Street, the Underwood Building, the Three Sisters, and the Network Building, the latter operating at net-zero energy.
