Developing an Action Strategy for Downtown Hyannis, MA

Image Source: Hyannis Main Street BID

The Challenge

Downtown Hyannis, MA, has long been a vibrant seasonal tourist destination, but it also functions as the urban center for Cape Cod.

The village is home to a number of strong cultural institutions, social service providers, critical transportation hubs, and government entities. Efforts have been underway over the past decade to leverage the existing assets to build a resilient year-round economy by increasing the density and availability of housing, while simultaneously developing mechanisms to create and retain living-wage job opportunities.

COVID-19 illuminated the vulnerabilities associated with the seasonal nature of the economy and initiated a paradigm shift in how people lived and worked. This created a renewed sense of urgency for the community to unify under a common vision and place itself in a position to channel future public and private investments thoughtfully and strategically.

The Solution

MassDevelopment, in partnership with Town of Barnstable, hired Camoin Associates to facilitate a strategic planning process for downtown Hyannis.

The purpose of the Downtown Hyannis Action Strategy was to coalesce ongoing efforts and catalyze that momentum within a focused, actionable strategy for downtown that will function as an implementation roadmap for the village to cement itself as a resilient year-round community in the heart of Cape Cod.

The project team identified strategies and actions within the goal areas of:

• Strengthen capacity, collaboration, and tools for economic development
• Build downtown as an arts and culture destination
• Support downtown with state-of-the-art infrastructure
• Increase resiliency through economic diversity
• Buildout housing and commercial stock to meet current and future needs

As part of the project, an Illustrative Downtown Opportunity Concept Map was developed that graphically represented the connection between the existing conditions and desired future for Downtown Hyannis. The map shows current and planned projects (purple), focus areas for public space activation and place making recommendations from complementary reports (green), opportunity sites identified as part of this planning process (red), and the central Main Street corridor (orange).

A 10-minute walking radius was drawn from both the Transit Center and the Ferry Terminal to illustrates that visitors arriving by bus or ferry can easily walk to many points along the eastern end of the study area, which is where most of the projects and initiatives are concentrated.

The Town and MassDevelopment worked together to organize and workshop strategies and actions outlined in the Action Plan Matrix. Through a collaborative process, the Town, MassDevelopment and their partners are prepared to carry out projects and initiatives to enhance Downtown Hyannis to the become a desirable location for companies, residents, and visitors.

To jump start the downtown vision, Camoin Associates developed a concept plan for a critical site at 200 Main Street that showed the development potential and building style to enhance the main traffic corridor to Hyannis.

The Impact

The Downtown Hyannis Action Strategy combines a vision for the future and a detailed, actionable plan for attaining that vision.

As the downtown evolves and related conditions and economic drivers shift, this vision may also evolve, resulting in future modifications to the plan.

The Action Plan Matrix includes a prioritized list of actions and strategies needed to successfully implement the Downtown Hyannis Action Strategy. The Action Plan Matrix will be referred to and refined frequently as projects and initiatives are implemented and new actions emerge.