City accepts award for visionary design

Urban Excellence

The city of Sulphur Springs accepted its Rudy Bruner Urban Excellence Award on Saturday for the visionary design of the downtown square, according to the awards committee.

“Sulphur Springs downtown provides a great example of how to bring small towns back to life,” the selection committee said. “Sulphur Springs has inspired other rural towns and cities in Texas. Sulphur Springs has become a role model for other places and teaching lab for designers.”

Other recipients included cities about 153 times bigger than Sulphur Springs.

“It’s an honor just to be in the running with cities like Houston, Memphis and New Orleans,” City Manager Marc Maxwell said.

In addition to the prestige associated with winning the silver award, prize money of $10,000 is gifted to the project. Maxwell told the crowd assembled that the stated goal of putting public Wi-Fi downtown is not only achievable, but will be operational. Residents can expect to be able to surf the net on the square within 30 to 60 days, Maxwell said.

The city wanted to thank the county, the Downtown Business Alliance, the Hopkins County Veterans Memorial Association and Toole Design Group for their contributions to making the project a success.

According to Maxwell, the city is not done planning visionary projects. “The city council has recently indicated an interest in expanding our vision,” he said. “We have the upcoming Thermo mine project which has yet to be explored, which should close by the end of the year.”

Maxwell also stated the city has been through a vision process in regards to city parks, which included community charrettes and the recent adoption of the Parks and Open Space master plan by the city council.

“We should see that come to fruition in the near future with a total rebuild of Pacific Park if the proposition passes in November,” Maxwell said.