NW 1st Avenue between NW 16th Street and NW 20th Street is located one block north of University Avenue, across the street from the University of Florida and the Ben Hill Griffi n Stadium, the main economic and social hub for Gainesville. This segment of NW 1st Avenue is an approximately 2,000-foot long, 50-foot wide right-of-way, two-lane corridor, housing multiple users with competing needs, limited resources, and abundant blight. Properties located on the south side of the street primarily front University Avenue and use NW 1st Avenue as a service alley, where utility, waste, delivery, and parking needs must be met. Businesses and residential users on the north side of the street, however, use NW 1st Avenue as their front door and look for an attractive and functional street. Existing conditions include a wide range of users, limited parking, insufficient sidewalks, exposed dumpsters, heavy delivery needs, overhead utilities, limited stormwater capacity, and more.

The design of the project includes improvements to the roadway, stormwater, electrical design, lighting and photometric, landscaping, irrigation, street furniture, and hardscaping to create a sense of place on NW 1st Avenue Corridor. CHW is providing civil engineering, transportation engineering, client advocacy, landscape architecture, land surveyor and mapping, construction administration, and construction engineering inspection services.