Charting the Future

By Jorge Casuso

October 16 -- Bayside merchants, property owners and residents weighed in on the future of the Downtown at five community forums and individual meetings last month, and making the area cleaner and safer was a goal shared by all.

The meetings, along with a survey of residents and visitors, will help identify key issues used to hammer out a management plan for the Third Street Promenade and the surrounding area and establish ways to fund the common priorities over the next ten years.

“The residents see the same needs as the merchants who see the same needs as the property owners,” said Kathleen Rawson, the Bayside District’s executive director. “We are not seeing a huge divergence of opinions on the top issues.”

Improving the infrastructure, addressing the homeless problem and bringing state-of-the-art theaters to the area topped the lists compiled by the three focus groups.

“In order to maintain vibrancy, folks see the need for new theaters and a change in the number of transients,” Rawson said. “There’s a general need to invest in the infrastructure, because it’s beginning to look its age.”

“People are worried about cleanliness, people are worried about safety,” said Kelly Wallace, a Bayside Board member and co-owner of the newsstand on the Promenade. “We all have the same concerns as merchants.

“The general consensus is that we need a new direction,” Wallace said. “The Promenade has been a great success, but things are aging. We have to see how we get the luster we had at the beginning.”

To chart a course, Bayside officials have hired Progressive Urban Management Associates (PUMA), a prominent Denver-based consulting firm that has worked with more than 100 cities over the past 13 years.

At the meetings in late September, the firm helped Downtown stakeholders express their vision of Downtown in 2016 and the problems it must address to make that vision a reality. “Clean” and “Safe” were two words that immediately hit the poster boards.

“The residents want everyone to feel safe and secure Downtown,” said Hillary Atkin, a resident who attended one of the meetings. “That was predominant. That needs to be a major goal.”

With many of the City’s estimated 2,000 transients concentrated on and around the Promenade, the issue of homelessness once again was the focus of attention.

“We all know that there is a homeless problem, and people feel uncomfortable with that,” Atkin said. “I personally feel uneasy sometimes… I think a safer, cleaner environment was a key theme.”

Some of those who attended the meetings also called for retaining and luring more independent businesses to an area they fear is being homogenized by chains and making the Bayside more identifiable as an area by installing uniform streetlights and encouraging similar facades.

“There seems to be a lack of cohesion Downtown,” Atkin said.

Some would also like to see the boundaries of the Downtown expanded to include surrounding streets. One of those was Mark Romney, who owns property on 5th Street.

“It’s like standing on the outside of a country club that you know you have the resources to join,” Romney said at the property owners’ meeting.

Bayside officials and their consultants are also looking at the management structure that has been in place for a decade and the possibility of levying assessments to pay for the necessary improvements.

Some Downtown merchants and property owners would like to see Downtown stakeholders have a greater say in who is appointed to the Bayside Board and how money assessed from Downtown businesses is spent, decisions currently in the hands of City officials.

Rawson cautioned that it is too early to tell what management changes need to be made and how the money to bank roll the improvements will be raised.

“The issue of how all this will happen is very premature,” she said.

But Bayside officials agree changes are necessary to keep the Bayside competitive.

“The concern is that the status quo is not what we need to be doing,” said Barbara Bryan, a Downtown merchant who sits on the Bayside Board. “Just leaving it alone is not going to work.”