Just 11 miles south of Seattle, Renton straddles Lake Washington, at the mouth of the Cedar River. In the mid-1990s, the City had invested a significant amount of money in its Civic Core, relocating car dealerships and building a transit center, multi-family residential and a town square. But this didn’t attract the anticipated investment or community interest in the district.

MIG helped create a vision and action plan for the Civic Core and Downtown district that outlines a community-supported vision and actions to take advantage of the City’s central location in the region. A full assessment of public facilities—including parks and publicly owned spaces, the street and built environment, transit, and bicycle and pedestrian accessibility—identified specific interventions needed to create a true town center. The Plan includes critical placemaking attributes, key features and identity elements, and strategic implementation strategies that can be adopted over time.

The Plan is based on business- and community-input, through an interactive website (rentonciviccore.com), and both individual and large community conversations, in English, Spanish and Vietnamese.