BCon Preservation Design Studios I & II: Final Project Web Site

On May 5th, BCon students did a final presentation of the Upper Congress Street/Mt. Ida Neighborhood studio project at Troy's St. Francis de Sales Roman Catholic Church. In spite of the glorious weather and the opening of Little League baseball, the meeting was well attended. (The image above is the 1845 City Engineer's Map by S. A. Beers, provided courtesy of the Troy Public Library).

The student presentation consisted mainly of a brief explanation of the studio's purpose followed by an overview of the neighborhood's history, student recommendations for the corridor's improvement, and a "walk-through" of the comprehensive web site the students developed as their final studio project. Although the studio strayed somewhat from its original adherence to revitalization based on the principles of Main Street (developing a broader neighborhood resource focus), I think the end result is great.

The web site has a TON of useful information and links to myriad resources within and outside Troy, as well as considerable information about the neighborhood's history, development, and building conditions.

The web site consists of the following sections:

• Purpose & Needs Statement
• History
• Demographics & Economics
• Natural Resources
• Zoning & Land Use
• Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats
• Our Proposal
• Resources (included design guidelines developed by the students)
  
• Links

It is the hope of the students and faculty that this web site will be useful to the residents of the Mt. Ida neighborhood and serve as a model for other neighborhoods in Troy (and elsewhere). It is currently hosted on RPI server space, but will likely be relocated when we find a more permanent home for it, perhaps on the City of Troy's web site or some other local site from which it can continue to be maintained.

We hope you will check it out and find it useful! You can follow the link above or find it in the sidebar under Rensselaer and Troy links.