There’s a 3rd new plan up for debate for Old Town Greenwood, and it appears to be much improved. A few years ago, there was a plan to knock down many of the old buildings, widen the street, and replace the buildings with faux replicas.  Fortunately, this was shelved, and replaced with a plan that would keep the buildings, but turn the streets into one-way thoroughfares. This  has also been shelved.
Now, there is a new plan by HWC Engineering and Axis. The plan is to restore building facades through a grant application process. They also plan to widen the sidewalks and eliminate turn lanes.  A few renderings in the extensive document are shown below:
This thoughtful plan has not received backing from the Greenwood City Council. It appears that there are members of the council who are still focused more on traffic flow than they are with history or place-making. There’s already an example of an edge suburban city in the region that removed many of its historic buildings for improved traffic flow:
The town of Brownsburg probably meant well by installing multiple lanes at a busy intersection. But, I doubt if this CVS and Walgreens were built on a greenfield. Turn the corner, and you see this:
It looks much like Old Town Greenwood today. This is no guarantee that Old Town Greenwood would also house a CVS and Walgreens on its main intersection, but it’s a cautionary tale of what could go wrong if the first option is historic building demolition and lane widening.
Finally, If you wish to keep up-to-date with what is going on in this process, I recommend following the Restore Old Town Greenwood Facebook page. It’s been a very valuable source of information.
Fortunately for Old Town Greenwood, today’s main arteries do not run through its core. Main Street is a lower-speed east-west connector, and Madison is kind of a “back way” mostly used by locals instead of by through traffic. People who are trying to get through Greenwood as fast as possible use 31 and Smith Valley.
My hope is that with Countyline to the north and Worthsville soon to the south, that all concerns about congestion is Old Town will be alleviated and something like the Axis design will happen.
My parents live by the old City Hall and we walk over to Mrs Curl in the summer. We usually head down the back streets to get there because those Madison/Main sidewalks are just too cramped.
I really want to try that little gastropub some time (Reverie, I think).
This is better than the one-way plan. Is there a plan for the southwest quadrant other than the focal point? A proposal showing an appropriately sized and placed building (to the curb with parking in rear) would be welcome.
I have no supporting evidence, but my guess is no. The old National City Bank is now the Greenwood City Hall and my guess is that they are going to keep every ounce of parking for the foreseeable future. Maybe someday land will be a such a premium there that they will sell an outlot, but that seems unlikely at this point.
Update: Redevelopment plan was approved unanimously.