Director's Take

City Owned Properties

01-31-2024

Dear Friend of Downtown,


How do you spell momentum? I’ll tell you… it’s making three city-owned properties available for redevelopment. And hopefully you’ve seen the news by now that announced the developers who are working on each piece of property, developing concepts and financial plans for them. This is huge for our Downtown and for our city.

It’s huge for a few reasons… putting an empty building and several vacant lots back into active use adds vibrancy to the street with more pedestrian activity, creates a continuous and uninterrupted streetscape that helps curb appeal, adds new choices among a diverse set of things to do or places to visit, and it brings new tax benefits to the city for increased services (for the entire city). And all of these things help improve safety, whether real or perceived.

Each of the sites is significant in size and can house a transformational project. To have three of these opportunities taking place simultaneously will be a power boost within the district where the property resides, as well as for the entire Downtown neighborhood.

And when you have good things happening in Downtown, it benefits the entire city. Development begets development and I am confident that these three projects, while jewels in their own right, will help attract other investment. And people.

After all, it’s people who make our Downtown come alive. It’s people who create the vibrancy we all want to be part of and to be proud of. I hope you follow along with these projects and with the continued economic momentum in our city.

See you on the streets soon!