Milford, Delaware - A "Main Streets in 3D" Community
Milford, Delaware, (22 square blocks, 135 buildings, pop. 7,200) was selected as one of the 2010 Main Streets in 3D project communities. This page will track the community's progress as it models its downtown using Google SketchUp and Earth and shows how this 3D visualization tool can be used for revitalization and presservation.
Since submitting its application, Downtown Milford, Inc., has been hosting meetings with its partners to make sure it was ready to start Sketching Up the moment the community was accepted into the project. Downtown Milford has a wide variety of partners engaged in modeling the downtown and has signed up various experts to volunteer, including a local architecture firm and technology company. Working with community history buffs and area youth, the team plans to model the downtown not just as it looks today, but also as it once looked and the way it could look in the future through a student competition that will envisions what Milford might be 10 years from now. The group is keen on updating the view from Google Earth, currently stuck in time at 2007, to show how downtown has changed and bounced back after a devastating fire. Thanks to city and state funds, a new streetscape will change the downtown's appearance. The 3D model will help guide the physical improvement process and help the community make better design choices. The Main Street program also plans to use the technology to assist business and building owners with façade improvements and finally to use the completed 3D downtown to promote and markeet the community – especially through animated videos using the 3D model.
Read a blog post by Downtown Milford, Inc., on why the community is amped about participating in Main Streets in 3D.
October Progress Update
Milford kicked off its training with a 20-minute presentation to 30 7th-grade students from Milford Middle School who are using Google Earth for social studies projects throughout the year. Jodi, the trainer, talked to them about how to find their house on Earth and how Google gets the images of so many places into their software.
Next up was the workshop. Participants included 8th-grade students from Milford Central Academy, GIS specialists, architects, college students, a city planner, photographers and graphic designers. Two other Delaware Main Street programs and a USDA rural affiliate community also sent representatives to attend the training. There is a lot of enthusiasm for the community’s participation in Main Streets in 3D, so a second training session is in the works to teach the 40 high school volunteers and 10 other volunteers who were not able to make the day of training.
“The participants were very excited after the training. Some even went home and continued practicing over the following week,” says Elizabeth Purcell, assistant to the executive director of Downtown Milford, Inc. “The 8th-grade students caught on very quickly. One of the students had already drawn a 3D house an hour into the training.” She points out some people found the 3D modeling more challenging than they expected, however, a local downtown architecture firm, Davis, Bowen & Friedel, has offered their time and resources to do follow-up trainings.
Downtown Milford, Inc., also used the training as an opportunity to showcase two local cafes. Coffee and pastries were served from the local favorite Dolce and Abbott's Grill provided gourmet sandwiches/pasta salad for lunch.
What’s next? Volunteers will be divided into groups based on their skill levels and interests and will get photography and modeling assignments. Their goal is to model 30 buildings by mid-December so they can begin to utilize the models for the downtown’s streetscape beautification and facade improvement programs.
Elizabeth is using Google Earth to mark the buildings assigned to the volunteers to help her keep track of who is doing what. Also, one volunteer will be tasked with adding downtown businesses into Google Places so customers can find them. Downtown Milford, Inc., created a Flickr and Google Group for volunteers to share resources and to discuss the project.
