As the commercial aspects of the Master Plan take hold, activity in the town center will increase. Commercial and business activity should flourish, housing will become regenerated, and cultural resources, such as the Downtown Arts District have great potential to succeed. The addition of a higher educational facility or technical school into the area, specifically along the Cook Avenue Corridor, will complete the full redevelopment of the community.

The former VMMC facility is an ideal location for a higher education facility or technical school. The building is in generally good condition, and because of its former use as a medical center, it has many amenities that may be reconfigured for teaching laboratories or similar uses. 

The former VMMC is however somewhat removed from the town center. It is also a building with limited potential to provide a campus atmosphere. Campuses ideally combine open space in a controlled atmosphere with educational facilities forming the open space. The southeast corner of Cook Avenue and Hanover Street is better suited to act as a campus center, with the former VMMC as a support facility. This brings the campus environment closer to the cultural resources of the town center and provides an opportunity to create the ideal campus environment.

This proposal is considered a future development that may take on many forms as the requirements for the educational facility are developed. This facility, or one like it will also add activity to the Cook Avenue area, which is currently underutilized with poor visual presence.

As part of this Master Plan, the relocation of Cooper Street to the north is proposed in conceptual form. This achieves one of the recommendations of the City of Meriden Land Use Plan (see Appendix on Existing Initiatives, Land Use Plan), that is, the improvement of the east-west connection south of the City Center. As the Cooper Street bridge over Harbor Brook is slated for replacement as part of the ongoing Flood Control improvements, it is strongly suggested that the possibility of the Cooper Street relocation be studied further before the bridge replacement begins. 

In conjunction with the conceptual relocation of Cooper Street, a slightly modified version of the proposed Cooper Street MDP is included as part of this Master Plan. In the configuration presented, the MDP development is more viable due to the Transportation/Access improvements proposed, and is a nice complement to the Campus area.

The material on this page is reproduced from "Meriden City Center Initiative - A Comprehensive Plan for Revitalization" prepared by BL Companies, released 07/24/2002. All rights reserved.