ARLINGTON, Texas -- Arlington residents will have an opportunity to voice their opinions about how to revitalize downtown Arlington during a series of workshops next week. A consultant hired by the city to develop a master plan for the downtown area will conduct the workshops June 9 and 10 and hopes to define downtown boundaries and what types of development should come into the area.

The team from Fregonese Calthorpe Associates is also seeking input from city staff, the Central Arlington Initiative Committee and residents during the workshops to flesh out the plan and present some strategy options to achieve the community's goals. "Our goal is to have a plan that all the groups can buy into," senior planner Bridgett Hewitt said.

The city has come up with plans in the past, but they differed from the master plans of the Arlington Chamber of Commerce, the University of Texas at Arlington and Tarrant County. "The other plans worked in their context," said Karen Brophy, Planning and Development Department director. "What is so cool about what's happened in the last eight months is getting the four entities together."

The workshops, which are open to the public, allow consultants to get input from the community, Project Manager Scott Fregonese said. "It's a way of making ourselves available," he said. "The purpose of the workshops is to get as much as we can from city staff and the public." The workshop June 9 will be on mapping the area. The consultants have come up with a composite map from the four master plans and will break participants into groups.

Each group will place icons on the map representing different uses, such as buildings or public facilities. Most of the uses will have examples from other cities to give the participants an idea of what a finished product would look like. In the workshop June 10, the consultant team and city staff will focus on comparing and analyzing the ideas from Wednesday night's session. Recurring ideas and development patterns will form a more refined composite plan.

"We will take all that input and synthesize that," Fregonese said. On June 11, the consultants will present what they've learned from the first two days and outline some strategies to accomplish the goals. Fregonese said for the plan to be right for the community, he needs to get as many residents as he can to participate. "It allows people to stay involved, to get their findings out, get their ideas heard and not have to wait a month to see the plan," he said. "We did this in Denton, and it worked out really well."