PORTSMOUTH — Plans for the city’s new innovation district along High Street focus on a health and wellness hub, a makerspace and improved streetscaping for pedestrians and bicyclists.

Over the last year, city staff have been working with consultants and conducting stakeholder meetings to draft recommendations for redevelopment of the district. Those plans were presented last week to City Council, which is expected to adopt the final recommendations early next year.

The innovation district extends from the historic Olde Towne and continues along the High Street corridor, bounded by Green Street and Confederate Avenue near the Martin Luther King Expressway. City leaders ultimately envision a mixed-use area with commercial and residential development, streetscaping, public art and improved amenities for bicyclists and pedestrians, along with an urban hub anchoring major employment centers.

The city owns a lot of the land in that stretch, with many lots available for development or revitalization.

“This is essentially just a NASCAR track right now,” said Brian Swets, the city’s manager of comprehensive and strategic planning, in a work session last week. “Four lanes of nothing. This is not a bad thing. This is an opportunity for us to take advantage of.”

The city will receive about $24 million in federal and state funding for the project. Interim City Manager Mimi Terry told City Council that it’ll be another 18 months before those funds are received, which allows the city time to educate the public about what’s available and what can be bid on by local contractors.

Draft plans for the district would divide the corridor into three areas: the Maker Square, the Health and Wellness Square as the urban core, and the MLK Gateway.

The maker square is based around the concept of a makerspace, which Swets described as the “blue collar” equivalent to a coworking space where people of various fields can access tools and resources. It could be a location for artists, auto mechanics, fashion designers, cooks or those working in technology to rent space or to take classes.

The health and wellness center of the district is intended to build off the momentum of the Hampton Roads Community Health Center. Swets said Portsmouth has two-thirds the number of general practitioners compared to the rest of the Hampton Roads region, emphasizing the need to attract more health care industries and workers as many of those jobs are plentiful and high-paying.

For the MLK Gateway area, Swets said the city wants to mostly let it be as it contains existing single-family neighborhoods.

The district will undergo streetscaping, including the addition of street trees and shared use paths for bicyclists and pedestrians. Swets said the number of travel lanes would be reduced to slow down traffic, adding that other ideas from the community for sustainability include multimodal transportation, bikeshares and pervious pavements.

The improvements are expected to improve overall public safety as the area has seen a disproportionate number of fatal car accidents and other injuries, Swets said. The district will also include the regional fiber ring for broadband services and affordable housing complexes that are already under construction.

Additionally, Swets said the lack of tree canopy throughout the district is evidence of an area that’s historically been redlined, meaning the government once deemed it too hazardous for investment. Planting trees, he said, can help cool down temperatures, reduce heating and cooling costs, clean the air and increase land value.

Swets said some zoning amendments will be necessary as the district is developed, such as the removal of parking requirements to reduce overall parking availability and the elimination of permit requirements for mixed-use developments.

“Hopefully by doing this, one of the things that we can do is we can improve the incomes for people living here in Portsmouth,” Swets said. “We know from our research that the highest paying jobs in Portsmouth disproportionately go to people who live outside the city and commute into it. By helping to build up entrepreneurial ideas, we’re building jobs that are good-paying, jobs that, if we invest in people, hopefully they will want to stay in Portsmouth out of a sense of loyalty.”

Since it’s a project that’ll span multiple city councils, Swets suggested forming a committee with various Portsmouth leaders and residents who can see the projects through.

Natalie Anderson, 757-732-1133, natalie.anderson@virginiamedia.com