From Urban Renewal to Inclusive Preservation: Reimagining the Loudoun Street Walking Mall

Winchester, Virginia’s Loudoun Street Walking Mall stands as both a testament to mid-century urban renewal and a microcosm of the policy contradictions that followed.What began as a 1974 modernization project, funded and designed under federal Urban Renewal principles, was folded into the city’s 1980 Historic District, bringing with it both vitality and regulation.

Today, the very facades built to modernize downtown commerce have become unmoveable objects of preservation. This case examines how those overlapping legacies—renewal and regulation—have shaped Winchester’s civic fabric and how a new public-art initiative offers a path toward inclusive preservation that balances heritage, creativity, and community belonging. Read more…