In 2017 the City of Indio retained Raimi + Associates and Sargent Town Planning to update their Genaeral Plan. The team had recently completed general plan updates for the City of Coachella to the east and Palm Desert to the west. Key goals for Indio’s plan update included a new vision and policies for more walkable, healthier, sustainable neighborhoods and neighborhood centers, and a new vision and implementation strategies for revitalizing the historic Highway 111 and 99 corridors through the center of town, replacing a dying shopping mall with a pedestrian-oriented “Midtown District”, and connecting that district to and revitalizing historic Downtown Indio.
Starting with a partially complete General Plan Update initiated by another consultant team, the R+A/STP team conducted a series of very well-attended visioning workshops to clarify the community’s ambition for more sustainable neighborhoods, vital employment districts and transit-ready crosstown corridors. The team translated that vision to a series of future place types, including neighborhoods and centers woven together with complete networks of complete streets, transformation of Highway 111 to Boulevard 111, and strategies for recentering community life on a revitalized, mixed-use, pedestrian-oriented and transit-ready downtown.
