A Plan to Revitalize Historic Easton, Maryland

AKRF created a market-based master plan for infill redevelopment opportunities within Easton, Maryland's historic downtown. The objective of the plan is to create a more livable, vibrant town center that emphasizes its historic heritage, strengthens its existing retail base, and creates new, contextually appropriate development and investment opportunities in the downtown area.

For this project, we completed extensive market research including:

• A comprehensive merchandising assessment of the downtown retail environment
• A series of community workshops and public outreach
• An urban design and development guideline assessment to promote growth in the region

Specific task work included:

• A detailed inventory of retail businesses
• Retail gap analyses
• A residential market assessment
• Stakeholder interviews
• Infrastructure and site suitability analyses

We conducted public meetings to identify specific needs and to better understand the community’s vision for the future of downtown Easton.

Based on the firm’s research and outreach, AKRF identified five infill sites for concept plan development, has proposed a mix of uses for those sites, and conducted preliminary development proformas to establish their economic feasibility.