Middletown Commons
An independent visualization and planning intervention that began by translating a developer’s two-dimensional submission into a three-dimensional environment residents could scrutinize—and developed into a resident-informed alternative for the same public land.
One act of visual translation changed how the proposal could be discussed.
In October 2025, Liam reconstructed the submitted site plan as an oblique aerial environment and shared it with the Middletown community. The image converted a technical plan into a recognizable place: buildings, parking, internal streets, open space, and their relationship to the surrounding neighborhood could be read at once.
“A town center for people, or for cars?”
Translate the developer’s 2D site plan into an independent 3D visualization without changing its basic layout.
Publish the image with a direct design question, prompting residents to assess the proposal as a physical environment rather than an abstract program.
Expand the work into additional proposal renderings, a resident-informed alternative, comparison graphics, research, and public presentation material.
All three-dimensional proposal renderings shown on this page—including the initial aerial reconstruction and the hotel proposal visualization—were independently created by Liam Blank. They visualize plans advanced by the development team but are not developer-produced renderings. The original two-dimensional plan is reproduced below solely as source material.
The submitted diagram became a physical environment residents could evaluate.
The developer’s two-dimensional plan established building footprints, internal streets, parking geometry, and open-space allocation. Liam translated that linework into a three-dimensional aerial scene while preserving the proposal’s underlying arrangement.
The resulting visualization made the cumulative amount of pavement, fragmented common space, automobile-oriented circulation, building massing, and relationship to the recreation complex legible at the scale of the surrounding community.
The proposed development framework reached into land carrying federal and commemorative obligations.
The initial public-private concept combined a 144-room hotel, housing, retail and restaurant space, a bank, a grocery store, internal streets, and extensive surface parking. Its proposed zoning framework also reached into the West Main Road Recreation Complex, including Pottsy Field, the memorial ballfield dedicated to Staff Sergeant Christopher Potts.
The recreation property had been transferred to Middletown in 1975 through the Federal Lands to Parks program for continued public park and recreation use and had received Land and Water Conservation Fund assistance. In March 2025, the National Park Service warned that commercial or residential uses permitted by right within the protected area could violate the federal deed covenant.
The central planning question was not whether Middletown could develop public land, but where development belonged and which obligations had to govern the site.
Concentrate development. Preserve the protected civic landscape.
The alternative retained Pottsy Field in its existing location and preserved the West Main Road Recreation Complex as continuous public land. New commercial development moved to the approximately 3.24-acre former Navy Lodge parcel, where built uses had previously existed.
It kept a flexible lawn for informal recreation, public gatherings, and community events; restrained development near the protected land; and left the northern acreage open for a separate community planning process after the public library’s relocation changed the program for that portion of the site.
Liam Blank’s visualization of the developer’s hotel-centered proposal and broader development framework—not a rendering produced by the developer.
Pottsy Field and the recreation complex remain in place; development occupies the former Navy Lodge parcel; the central public landscape remains continuous and adaptable.
Treat preservation as a site constraint
Pottsy Field remained part of the memorial landscape rather than a movable collection of fixtures. Federal recreation protections became a governing spatial condition.
Use previously disturbed land
The former Navy Lodge parcel carried the active development program, allowing revenue-producing use without treating the recreation complex as surplus property.
Keep public space adaptable
Open lawn, restrained landscaping, and limited pedestrian improvements preserved room for recreation, gatherings, and later community decisions.
The revised agreement adopted the same basic division of the site.
The narrowed development framework retained the recreation complex and limited the current development partner’s scope to the corner parcel at West Main Road and Coddington Highway, where the hotel was proposed.
The West Main Road Recreation Complex, including Pottsy Field, remained in its existing location and configuration.
The active commercial development program was confined to the former Navy Lodge parcel at West Main Road and Coddington Highway.
Retail, bank, grocery, housing, and other elements of the larger mixed-use program were removed from the current partner’s scope.
The remaining northern town property was reserved for a distinct community-oriented planning process.
The outcome reflected federal constraints, sustained resident organizing, public testimony, municipal negotiation, and changes within the development team. The visual work did not produce the outcome by itself; it gave the preservation position a coherent spatial form that could be circulated, tested, and revised.
- Location
- West Main Road and Coddington Highway, Middletown, Rhode Island
- Dates
- October 2025–June 2026
- Role
- Independent civic visualizer and planning strategy contributor
- Audience
- Residents, community advocates, meeting participants, municipal staff, and local decision-makers
- Outputs
- 3D proposal visualizations, plan translation, alternative scenarios, comparisons, presentation boards, and public graphics
Spatial evidence strengthened a resident-led case.
The visual work connected deed restrictions, memorial significance, existing land uses, municipal revenue objectives, and the changing development program within one legible spatial framework.
Resident organizers, the Potts family, veterans, Middletown Concerned Neighbors, nearby residents, and other participants developed the legal, commemorative, environmental, fiscal, and procedural case. Their campaign included public testimony, scrutiny of proposed replacement land, and a petition that collected more than 2,100 signatures.
The graphics supplied a common reference. Residents could support productive use of the former Navy Lodge parcel while opposing commercial conversion of the recreation complex, and public officials could evaluate that position as a concrete allocation of the same municipal land.
Development program, two-dimensional site plans, and formal submissions prepared by the Middletown Commons development team and maintained in Town records.
Initial 3D reconstruction, hotel proposal visualization, resident-informed site alternative, comparison graphics, and presentation materials by Liam Blank.
Legal research, testimony, organizing, petitioning, and public advocacy undertaken by residents, the Potts family, veterans, and community groups.
Make a consequential planning choice visible before it becomes fixed.
Independent civic visualization can translate technical plans, property records, and community priorities into a shared spatial reference for public review.
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