CENTER CITY COMMITTEE
MEETING MINUTES
November 26, 2002

Present: Peter Aucella, Marshall Field, Bob Flynn, Bill Lipchitz, Colin McNiece, Bill McGowan, and Molly Sheehy.

The meeting focused on how to get the downtown stakeholders together to go over the Plan and decide the best way to implement the recommendations. Also, to determine what the stakeholders can do to contribute to make the downtown thrive.

Colin highlighted the Plan's key points: that there needs to be a mix of retail and residential uses, that the downtown needs more market rate housing (there are currently about 70 new units of this type either underway or being planned), that big box retail won't work and that boutique types stores are what will work (the Venture Fund has financed 14 new businesses in the downtown over the last two years), existing businesses need some help (the Technical Assistance Program is being run out of the Small Business Assistance Center and the Window Dressing program has just started), and that traffic and parking issues are being worked on from the City's side. What is still needed, among other things, is a way to address issues like trash, alleyways, the lack of retail service type stores downtown, and the needs of building owners to attract tenants and market the area.

A large gathering of downtown stakeholders was discussed. Further discussion of who should attend included building owners, business owners, residents, cultural organizations, and employers. It was agreed that a facilitator would help keep the meeting focused and several suggestions were made as to people who could do that. The group would be asked to break into smaller ones and come up with 3-5 priorities, which would then be brought back to the larger group for further distillation.

To make this larger session more productive, it was agreed that meetings would first be held with specific groups of stakeholders as listed above. It was decided to start with building owners by inviting them to meet on Tuesday, December 17th at 8:00 AM at the Nesmith House (Molly has confirmed the date and time as available). The format will be to go over the Executive Summary of the plan and have city officials discuss the parking and traffic recommendations. A discussion of the rest of the plan would follow, including what's in it for the stakeholders.

Next weeks meeting will continue the planning process.

The meeting adjourned at 9:27 AM.

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