Jonesborough Municipal Garage Complex Conceptual Site Master Plan

Tennessee’s oldest town, Jonesborough, is known for its historic preservation, small-town charm, and the International Storytelling Festival. It is a popular destination for both locals and tourists. The town offers its residents a number of recreational opportunities including Wetlands Water Park, Persimmon Ridge Park, the Mary B. Martin Program for the Arts, and the Jonesborough Repertory Theatre. Another popular destination is Jonesborough’s Senior Citizen Center. The center offers “a variety of events and trips, opportunities for outreach to the community, education, socializing, health and fitness, and spiritual and vocational classes.” Although the population of Jonesborough was only 5,975 in the 2010 census, the Senior Citizen Center serves the broader Washington County area and has approximately 2,000 members. In addition, it has over 350 volunteers who help manage and operate the center.

In 2014, the Town of Jonesborough began constructing a new facility for the Senior Citizen Center in order to better meet the needs of its members. The new location is closer to the downtown area and will be more easily accessible. Construction is expected to be completed in the spring of 2015. The new center neighbors the town’s municipal garage and is located in the Longview Drive/North Lincoln Street neighborhood.

Although the town has actively tried to screen the municipal garage area and its activities from the surrounding neighborhood, they feel that the construction of the new Senior Citizen Center offers an opportunity to remove the municipal garage to a more appropriate location and then utilize the vacated land as an asset - a park that serves the seniors and the surrounding neighborhood.

The Town of Jonesborough requested that the Community Design Assistance Center help in the site planning for the new municipal garage and the redesign of the current municipal garage property. The new municipal garage site is located in the floodplain of Little Limestone Creek, so special attention was paid to the floodway and the appropriate type of development for the site. In addition, the town wanted to minimize any impacts of the new facility on neighboring residents.

It was envisioned that the current municipal garage property would be redeveloped into a senior citizen/neighborhood park. This park would serve the needs of the Longview Drive/North Lincoln Street neighborhood as well as the Senior Citizen Center.

The site planning for the new municipal garage is described in this report. The conceptual design for the park is described in a separate report.