Director's Take

Why Residential Development is so Important

01-27-2025

Dear Friend of Downtown,

The single most important thing to be done in Downtown? In my humble opinion, we need to build new downtown housing opportunities. We need people walking around at all hours of the day, who may be going to attractions, working, eating/drinking, or just hanging out… and it’s residents who do that.

We don’t have the same number of people in Downtown during the weekdays due to remote working, and since I can’t wave a magic wand and make employers bring their folks back to the office, the next best – even better – thing to do is to build residential units that will attract new people to the area.

I’ve long said that it’s the 20- and 30-year-olds who want to live near cool stuff, near where they work, and where they don’t need a car… that’s our Downtown! So we need financial incentives and tools that will help developers be able to put their capital stacks together to make a project make sense, and look at some locations to do that.

Mayor Greenberg created an office-to-residential conversion fund. And there is an effort underway to expand the local property tax abatement program at the state level. These tools would go a long way in helping us breathe new life into some of Downtown’s beautiful, older buildings that would benefit from new life, and help get the large number of underutilized surface parking lots put into productive use. More developments that create a solid street wall, providing more curb appeal and safety, and more pedestrian activity will make the single biggest change in our Downtown.

I encourage you to join me in advocating for this change and I hope to see you on the streets soon!