Imagine Catalina Strategic Master Plan

Catalina Island, CA | 2011-2012

This project was designed and executed by William McDonough + Partners, with Gavin Knowles as the initial point of client contact and key team member throughout the strategic master plan process.

Catalina Island is one of the largest privately held wildland areas within the southern California region.  Its’ spectacular and undeveloped coastline and rugged interior is a unique and biologically rich environment with numerous endemic species found nowhere else in the world.  The Catalina Island Conservancy owns and manages the vast nature preserve comprising 88% of the island.  For over five decades, the Conservancy has been charged with actively protecting and restoring this exceptional landscape while providing public access for recreational and educational experiences.

 In 2010, the Catalina Island Conservancy created a new mission statement, goals, and objectives for the management, conservation, and use of the Conservancy’s lands in the report Imagine Catalina: A Vision for the Future.  It identified three priority areas - the Wrigley Memorial and Botanic Garden, Middle Ranch, and Camping – as areas for further study and development.  William McDonough + Partners (where Gavin was the initial point of contact and key team member), Nelson Byrd Woltz Landscape Architects, AECOM, ICF International, and TBD Consultants were commissioned to develop a framework for implementing the visions articulated in Imagine Catalina.

This strategic master plan scope occurred over three phases of work.  In Phase 1, the team conducted an inventory of site characteristics, marketing and regulatory context, and infrastructure conditions.  In Phase 2, the team developed conceptual sketches for each Priority Area, a marketing study of viable development and activity within each area, and preliminary concepts for transportation and infrastructure.  In Phase 3, the team further refined these strategic approaches, and integrated intelligence of phasing, costing, and market analysis. The resulting report provided conceptual illustration, a market analysis and business plan, transportation and infrastructure strategies, and recommendations on priorities and phasing to inform allocation of the Conservancy’s resources over a 10 to 20 year implementation period.

Gavin’s long history with the island, where he spent every summer of his childhood and adolescence, and his design thinking around regenerative design heavily informed the process, especially around the concept that the architectural response could be endemic to Catalina in the same way so many unique species are endemic to the island.