Collierville is rolling out a three-day Design Week for its Collierville 2050 Comprehensive Plan from Tuesday, May 12, through Thursday, May 14, turning town planning into something closer to a community workshop than a backroom exercise. Over the three days, residents can drop in for design charrettes at Carriage Crossing, sit in on an evening keynote, and finish the week at Town Hall with an open house and a final presentation to the Board of Mayor and Aldermen. The idea is to collect sketches, priorities, and on-the-ground local knowledge that will steer Collierville’s roadmap through 2050.
Town staff has posted the full schedule and how-to-participate details on the project webpage and across social media. According to the Town of Collierville, Design Week is part of the broader Collierville 2050 outreach effort. The town’s Facebook post lays out design charrettes at Carriage Crossing on May 12 (12:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m.), May 13 (9:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m.), and May 14 (9:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.), plus a keynote at Collierville High School on the evening of May 12. The week wraps up at Town Hall on May 14 with an open house, followed by a 6:30 p.m. final presentation to the council. The staggered hours are meant to let people swing by when it fits their schedule and hand ideas straight to the project team.
What to expect during Design Week
At the center of Design Week is a multi-day, drop-in design charrette, essentially an intense, collaborative workshop where residents, designers, and town staff sketch out options and test ideas in real time. Charrettes condense design, review, and public feedback into a tight timeline that still produces concrete concepts quickly, according to the National Academies. That means even a single afternoon at one of the tables can turn into drawings or notes that feed directly into future maps and recommendations.
Keynote speaker and project team
The town lists Tristan Cleveland of Happy Cities as the Design Week keynote speaker, an urban planner known for his work on retrofitting car-dependent suburbs into more walkable, people-focused places. Strong Towns highlights Cleveland’s work with Happy Cities and its experience leading conversations on community design. Collierville has already hired a consultant team to steer the Collierville 2050 process, with Freese & Nichols identified as the lead firm on the project, according to The Daily Memphian.
How to participate
For anyone who cannot make it to Town Hall or Carriage Crossing in person, the town has set up an online interactive map and sign-up hub where residents can drop comments and place markers on locations they care about. The project page directs people to the Town of Collierville to plug in remotely. Staff emphasizes that the in-person charrettes are intentionally drop-in, so walk-ins are welcome during any of the posted hours, and all input gathered will be folded into the draft comprehensive plan.
Why this matters
The comprehensive plan is set to guide land use, transportation, utilities, and recreation priorities for roughly the next 25 years, shaping everything from traffic patterns to development decisions to how public dollars are spent. Coverage in a tapestry of community development and public engagement, and other local outlets, has described Collierville 2050 as an 18-month effort built around pulling broad public input into those long-range choices.
