CENTER CITY COMMITTEE MEETING MINUTES

February 2, 2010

 

The next informal meeting of the Center City Committee 

will be February 9, 2010

8:30 AM

at

The Coffee Mill

 23 Palmer Street

 

The next meeting of the Stakeholder Representatives

will be

Tuesday February 23, 2010  8:30 AM

The MCC Morse Federal Building

East Merrimack Street

 

 

Present:  Suzzanne Cromwell, George DeLuca, Larry Field, Mike Frye, Capt. Thomas Kennedy, Ted Lavash, Bill Lipchitz, Theresa Park, Steve Syverson, and Terry Williams

 

The meeting opened at 8:30 AM.

 

Beginning next week the Center City Committee will be meeting at The Coffee Mill, located at 23 Palmer Street.  While Brew’d Awakening has great coffee, its space is difficult for holding committee meetings due to the number of attendees.  We’d like to thank Andy for his hospitality.

 

Suzz informed the committee that a community screening of “The Invention of Lying” will be held Thursday, February 18th at 7pm at the Old Court.

 

Bill brought up the issue of developing a work plan to present at the Annual Meeting March 23rd.  He first talked about Goal 1 of the 2009 work plan - Newcomers’ Night.  It was decided it makes more sense to hold Newcomers’ Night in the Fall rather than in the Spring, particularly since many of the newcomers are UMass Lowell students living at the ICC.  Steve mentioned that since September is Arts Month, that would have to be taken into consideration when planning.  George suggested making it Newcomers’ Week, although the consensus was that there are not enough resources to be able to pull that off.  When discussing whether to have the event on the walkway between the ICC and the canal, Theresa suggested finding out if the gatehouse between MCC campus and the ICC could be opened to create more space on the MCC side.  Mike said he would contact Residential Life at UMass Lowell to find out whether the event could take place next to the ICC.

 

Bill next addressed Goal 2 – keeping tabs on the new developments such as the JAM area, the Hamilton Canal District, and the Lawrence Mills to ensure they are fully integrated into the downtown.  George mentioned he has become involved in all the goals mentioned in the work plan and is figuring out how he can effectively work with the CCC since he is relatively new to the committee and wants to know more about its mission and history.

 

In talking more about the CCC’s role in the downtown, Ted brought up the subject of Barnes and Noble and what will happen to that space as an example of how the committee could become involved.  Chris Samaras has been meeting with downtown businesses to discuss special events they could become involved in.  Theresa talked about the city’s plan to have a downtown shopping incentive in which if shoppers spent $25 or more, their names would go into a drawing for an ipod.  This program will begin after Valentine’s Day and is a short-term initiative; the city is also working on long-term initiatives

 

Ted talked about the preponderance of information online about Lowell and events going on in the area.  He talked about the need for an aggregator for all the information found on various blogs and websites.  George responded that his website, ComeToLowell.com, is intended to do just that.  George also mentioned that events for Jack Kerouac’s 88th Birthday Celebration scheduled for March 11th, 12th, and 13th, are listed on ComToLowell.com.

 

Theresa suggested for the next CCC meeting to get input from each attendee regarding goals for the committee’s work plan, and to use this format for each meeting.

 

The meeting adjourned at 9:40 AM.