Beyond Tomorrow Downtown Plan

The Beyond Tomorrow Downtown Plan (PDF) established goals, principles, and steps to realize a bold but achievable vision filled with exciting concepts and opportunities for future growth and enhancements in one of the most cherished areas of our community; see the Executive Summary (PDF). The plan and its appendices were adopted by the City Commission via Ordinance Number 7700 on May 21, 2024. Some highlight content from the plan is displayed below as is the project chronology.

Latest Updates

Adoption

The plan and its appendices were adopted via Ordinance Number 7700 on May 21, 2024.

Plan Documents

The adopted Beyond Tomorrow Downtown Plan (PDF) is now viewable.

The plan document is broken into multiple parts:

Part 1: Development Goals and Principles establishes the vision, goals and principles for the physical development of downtown.
Part 2: Policy Goals and Principles establishes the vision, goals, and principles for different elements of planning downtown.
Part 3: Implementation Plan takes the vision, goals, and principles established in Parts 1 and 2 and creates actionable steps to achieve and apply them.

There are also a Book of Appendices (PDF):

Appendix A: Background Report is a summary of all the all the research and information gathered prior to development of the above three parts of this plan.
Appendix B: Glossary is a list of terms and definitions of those terms used throughout the plan document.
Appendix C: South Downtown Brownfield Study is a concurrent study of brownfield sites in the southern end of downtown, which is taken into consideration in looking at the greater vision, goals, and principles for development and policy in the area, established in the above three parts of this plan. This study was conducted by Stantec and funded by a grant received by the Flint Hills Regional Council. See more information on the South Downtown Brownfield Study website.

Plan Contents

Overall Vision

Downtown Manhattan is envisioned as a vibrant, historic, pedestrian-orientated cultural and economic focal point of the city and region, offering diverse and high-quality shopping, dining, art, entertainment, service, event, housing, civic experiences, and spaces all reflective of who we are as a community.

Part of the plan establishes ten sub-areas within the Beyond Tomorrow Downtown Plan boundary, seen on the right. These areas have unique characteristics and goals to support a unified vision (described more in the plan) and are put into one of two categories: "Areas of Change and Improvement" and "Areas of Stability and Maintenance." This will focus efforts for theses areas and direct growth.