The design team on their first day, taking a tour of Moss Point.

left to right
Ginette Bone (Professor of Architecture, Tulane University), Robert Bracken (intern at Tulane Regional Urban Design Center), Grover Mouton (Director of Tulane Regional Urban Design Center), Britton Jones (Landscape Architect, GCCDS), Mayor Xavier Bishop (Mayor of Moss Point), Jeff Soule (Diretor of Outreach & International Programs, American Planning Association)



Sketch of an imagined future interpretive center


Sketch of the proposed City Hall

  

Mayors' Institute Design Charrette

Partners : City of Moss Point, Tulane Regional Urban Design Center, National Endowment for the Arts, Mayors' Institute on City Design

In February 2009, GCCDS teamed with the Mayors’ Institute on City Design, Tulane Regional Urban Design Center and the National Endowment for the Arts in a design charrette to assist the city of Moss Point, Mississippi in its redevelopment efforts after the wake of Hurricane Katrina.  With the leadership of The Mayors' Institute on City Design, whose mission is "to help transform communities through design by preparing mayors to be the chief urban designers of their cities,” the GCCDS was able to develop a master plan design that could be achieved with the allotted funds.  The proposed design built upon past master plans that were developed for the city, but it further addressed issues of flooding and new FEMA regulations.  In this master planning process the group looked beyond Moss Point, and out to its Mississippi Gulf Coast context, to determine the most reasonable goals.

The master plan that was created and adopted by the City refocused downtown on its most important and unique feature, the Escatawpa River, while maintaining all the needed elements that were in the previous master plans: a City Hall, a fire station, a revitalized waterfront park, a city green, new commercial opportunities, and parking needs.  In addition to meeting the city’s needs, the design team proposed an interpretive center to be located downtown, on the west bank of the Escatawpa River.  The interpretive center would tell the history of Moss Point andits siting on the river, along with exhibits on the wildlife ecologies of the area.  


Sketch of the ideas for downtown that came from the design session


Sketch of a prospective future City Hall and town green, facing Main Street in downtown Moss Point.