For the past few years, the concept of “downtown revitalization” has grown to become the go-to buzzword among city staff and council members, particularly those running for elected office, when discussing the future of Tomball.

All of the talk is now turning to action as the City of Tomball and the Tomball city council are set to adopt a plan this fall that will set the blueprint for what downtown Tomball could eventually become.

Peggy Fiandaca and Partners for Strategic Action (PSA), an Arizona-based urban planning company that formulated the city’s award-winning Comprehensive Plan, is now focusing on downtown Tomball, which, at least in some parts, has become a stagnant relic of better economic days.

At the July 18 meeting of the Tomball City Council, Fiandaca presented a “strategic framework” for PSA’s Downtown Specific Plan (DSP). Once finalized and approved by the city, the DSP will serve as a “regulatory document” that spells out the building and design standards for new development in a defined portion of downtown Tomball.

That defined area begins at South Elm at the rail road tracks crossing Main Street, extends west to Baker Drive, south to Florence Street, north to Hicks and Epps Streets and also includes the land currently being used by the Tomball Museum Center.

The DSP identifies six “character areas” in the designated portion of downtown that will each see their own building standards.

“The DSP will take the character areas and define regulations for each of those,” Fiandaca said. “We’re trying to build on the unique character of downtown.”

Those six character area zoning designations include Historic Main Street, Old Town Plaza Area, Old Town Commercial, Mixed Use Transition, Old Town Residential and Museum Center.

The DSP as it was initially presented to council by Fiandaca included such specific building regulations as how wide and high store fronts should be constructed and how many stories buildings should, or could, be constructed.

For example, Fiandaca explained that currently the city allows up to four-story buildings to be constructed along Main Street. The DSP, if approved as it was presented, would allow up to five-story buildings on Main Street.

Land uses for buildings in the Historic Main Street character area under the DSP would include office, service, commercial, retail, civic and entertainment businesses on the ground floor and residential and hotels on the upper floors.

“The idea is to allow not only for mixed use horizontally, but also vertically,” Fiandaca explained.

The concept of hotel or residential facilities being constructed along Main Street is a relatively new one to Tomball, but one Fiandaca says is an important component to downtown redevelopment.

“It’s critical to have people not only living in the neighborhoods around downtown, but actually living in downtown,” she said.

The DSP concept also includes plans for better usage of Tomball’s downtown alleys and green space in order to improve circulation, “not only with cars, but also with pedestrians,” Fiandaca said.

Part of that plan would include the removal of parking along Main Street and the construction of new parking lots at specific areas in downtown.

For much of this year, the Tomball City Council has discussed such lots and is in the process of finalizing a new parking plan, but has not considered removing the parking along Main Street.

City Manager George Shackelford explained that, should the DSP be approved by council, buildings and businesses currently lying in the defined downtown area would not be subject to the new regulations.

“They would obviously be grandfathered in, but any new construction would have to meet the new criteria,” he said.

He added that the idea of the DSP is to have “more uniform development,” a concept that he admitted would take time.

“It’s going to take time to develop and re-develop before you start seeing some major improvements,” he said. “It’s not like it’s going to be that way over night.”

Shackelford said the city council could formally adopt the DSP in November.

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