It was a huge investment for HOSA to organize and fund this project. This message from HOSA President Susan Gulledge explains the details of the Porter Avenue Community Conversations project, and why it was an important effort to HOSA.

The Board and membership of the Historic Ocean Springs Association is pleased to present this report summarizing activities and findings from our HOSA Porter Avenue Community Conversations Project.

As we gift this report to the City of Ocean Springs, it is our hope that the City will see this document as a resource as they consider development requests and plan improvements along Porter Avenue, especially the area from the Biloxi/Ocean Springs Bridge to City Hall at Dewey Avenue. The content of this report is built largely from comments and suggestions of residents and stakeholders who are financially and emotionally invested along Porter Avenue and in the surrounding areas.  

The Porter Avenue area is an important and developing corridor into the heart of Ocean Springs. New specialty businesses, eateries, galleries, historic churches, boutique hotels and professional offices blend in with residences and live oaks to define this area of our historic city. HOSA believes that how growth occurs along Porter Avenue matters greatly, both to that area and to Ocean Springs.

More than two years ago, HOSA began talking about growth and change along Porter Avenue. We recognized that our community was facing issues common to other growing cities, focusing mostly on the need to support growth and creativity while also protecting the fabric of an existing historic area. HOSA members considered how and if our community organization might assist in facilitating a process to address these issues as they relate to our Ocean Springs. After much deliberation, we formed the design for a project we felt would be productive: a series of community conversations where stakeholders, residents and other interested citizens could voice their input in constructive conversations, working together toward developing a vision and a planning resource tool for the Porter corridor. To make certain that our efforts were facilitated in a professional manner, HOSA contracted with the team at Gulf Coast Community Design Studios, which is an arm of MSU. We are grateful in the assistance and teamwork of GCCDS, and for their leadership in designing this final document. Our project stalled in 2020 due to restrictions of the Covid-19 pandemic, but we never stopped making progress. HOSA feels that the community conversations held in 2021 were worth waiting for. We are excited to present this final product as the result.  

Some places give us an emotional sense, while others do not. A “sense of place” is a term often used to describe the feeling a person experiences while in a specific location. Porter Avenue has a distinctive sense of place, derived from the unique combination of buildings, streets, trees, open spaces, sounds, light, landscaping, density, vehicular and pedestrian traffic, public art, and more. These qualities, combined with the strong spirit of the many people who care about Porter Avenue, create an area of this city which is truly rich in its sense of place. HOSA sees the challenge for our community now is to embrace growth and creativity while preserving existing qualities of the Porter Avenue area. From this, we see the sense of place that is Porter Avenue becoming deeper and more beautifully unique. HOSA presents this document to the City as a resource to assist in that effort.