The City of Victoria’s vision is to enhance downtown offerings through entertainment, culture, businesses, and recreational uses, creating a vibrant energetic, pedestrian-friendly destination. Downtown Victoria’s character and growing population puts the area in a unique position to enhance what’s there and guide potential development to align with the city’s vision. A major need for the downtown core is available parking. Stieger Lake Lane was originally built in 1989 as a 24-foot-wide rural road without curb and gutter, storm sewer, or pedestrian facilities. Overhead utilities exist along this segment, conflicting with the city’s downtown vision.

Bolton & Menk led the city through the preliminary design process to arrive at a consensus-based solution. Multiple alternatives were developed to achieve project goals. The selected alternative incorporates aesthetic elements that align with its architecture vision while maximizing functionality and minimizing long-term maintenance. The selected alternative balances existing property constraints with the addition of a pedestrian facility, parking, and future expansion. A 3D model was developed, and a fly-through animation was produced to give a side-by-side before and after representation of the project.

Ultimately, we extended pedestrian facilities to the east edge of the downtown core, increased available parking, reconstructed a failing segment of roadway, and expanded the downtown core area, all while staying within budget.