CENTER CITY COMMITTEE MEETING
MINUTES
June 22, 2010
|
The summer schedule of meetings of the Center City
Committee
will have one
informal meeting in July
to be scheduled
8:30 AM
at
The Coffee Mill
23 Palmer Street
The next meetings of the Stakeholder
Representatives
will be
Tuesday June 29, 2010 8:30 AM
And Tuesday, August 24, 2010
The MCC Morse
Federal Building
East Merrimack Street
|
Present: Marshall Field, Ted Lavash,
Bill Lipchitz, and Terry Williams
The meeting
opened at 8:30 AM.
Bill talked
about the highly successful Innovative Cities Conference which took place in Lowell June 17th
to 19th. Presentations from
six cities included: Ann Arbor, Michigan; Asheville, North Carolina; Belfast, Northern Ireland; Lowell;
Milwaukee, Wisconsin;
and Portland, Oregon.
The keynote speaker, Adolfo Carrion, former Director of the White House
Office of Urban Affairs, said it was in Lowell’s
best interest not to see Lawrence
fail as a city. The advantages of having
colleges and universities located in mid-sized cities were also covered at the
conference. John Norquist,
former mayor of Milwaukee,
and presently President for the Congress for the New Urbanism talked about the
importance of having a dense downtown area where traffic slows down somewhat
instead of racing through. Mr. Norquist also mentioned that there are too many parking
regulations in Lowell. Jonathan Jarvis, Director of the National
Park Service, spoke about how other cities are trying to follow Lowell’s lead by
establishing national parks within cities.
In response
to a question about having a dedicated staff member dealing with downtown
issues, Bill brought up the idea of creating a Business Improvement District in Lowell, which
could then hire a Downtown Coordinator.
However, a certain percentage of building owners would have to buy into
that and participate.
Next week
will be the last Stakeholders’ Meeting until August. The theme of the meeting is “Lowell’s Summer of Fun”. Various
representatives will be speaking about their upcoming events including LZ Nunn
from COOL, Sue Andrews from the National Park Service and Sayon
Suon from the Southeast Asian Water Festival.
The meeting
adjourned at 9:20 AM.
