Updated: 4:34 p.m.Thursday, Feb. 18, 2016 | Posted: 4:31 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 18, 2016

New course for Middletown’sdowntown considered

By Mike Rutledge

Staff Writer

MIDDLETOWN — 

Whatcourse should be charted for Middletown’sdowntown? Should it be branded as an arts area? A historic downtown? Maybeboth, but in different parts of the downtown? Or perhaps something else?

Thatwill be a main focus of a downtown master plan that Downtown Middletown Inc. ispoised to launch in coming weeks. The organization next week will announcewhich consulting firm it will hire to formulate the plan.

“Therewill be a lot of public feedback,” promises Downtown Middletown Inc. ExecutiveDirector Mallory Greenham.

Alot of feedback already has been collected through the “What If Middletown?”visioning process now underway, which is evaluating community sentiment for howthe entire city should move forward, Greenham notes.

Butthe public input sought for the downtown master plan “will be much morespecific, direct questions about downtown Middletown:Do you see it as a historic downtown? Do you see it as an arts-districtdowntown? Do you see it more urban? Do you not even care about the historicarchitecture?”

“Thoseare the things that we want to find out from the public,” Greenham said.

Theplan will envision what the downtown’s street lights will look like: Modern?Historic? Artistic?

“Thatis going to come out through their research,” Greenham said. “If it comes outthat we see ourselves as more of an arts district, then maybe they’re a littlebit more artistic, and maybe more modern. If we really feel that the core ofour essence here in downtown Middletownis that we are a historic district, then they might be more historicallyappropriate for the age.”

“Thelight poles are kind of how this all got started,” Greenham said. “We realizedthat there’s a lot of interest to put banners and decorations on our poles.”

Butthe current poles are deteriorating, and the materials they’re made from wouldcause a safety issue to retrofit them to hold banners and decorations, Greenhamsaid.

“They’regoing to do public meetings and surveys,” she said.

Herorganization still is negotiating terms with the consultant, but the price tagis expected to be in the $40,000 range, with half the funding coming from citygovernment and the rest from other community funding sources, Greenham said.The plan should be finished this fall.

Lots of information wanted

“Ikind-of think a downtown master plan is almost a basic requirement for anydowntown district that’s looking to have a rebirth in revitalization,” Greenhamsaid. “In a way, it was almost kind of shocking that we didn’t have a plan forour downtown district.”

“Withouta plan, you don’t know where you’re going, so it’s good to have that,” saidMayor Larry Mulligan Jr. “And anytime we have people coming together toparticipate in it, it’s great to get broader input, because it can’t just be afew people on city council or the planning department — it needs to be abroader effort.”

WhileDowntown Middletown Inc. is leading the plan, city government plans toimplement it as a guiding document, Mulligan said. So before departments atcity hall take action on street lights, signs or other matters downtown, theywill look to its recommendations.

CityManager Doug Adkins recently announced the goal that by 2020 of seeing thedowntown “at least 70 percent full, instead of the 70 percent empty it is now,”and expressed hope a new downtown plan can foster development.

Here’ssome other help the plan should provide for downtown, which has beenexperiencing a gradual renaissance in recent years, with numerous shopssprouting flags out front announcing they’re “open”:

*Suggestionsfor ways to improve signs that direct people to downtown locations;

·                      A plan for what sidewalks, flower planters, garbage cans andbenches should look like;

·                      Ways to improve or better use downtown greenspace areas;

·                      Examinations of improvements that can be made to all eighttraffic gateways to downtown; and

·                      A look at the possibilities for housing downtown.

Theplan also is intended to spark downtown development at specific sites, such asthe warehouse row between downtown and the riverfront, and places like theStudio Theater.

Whatwe hope to walk away with is a handful of clearly identified projects that wedon’t necessarily have the investors for,” Greenham said. The plan shouldinclude the top investment opportunities, with research and market studiesbehind them “to say this is a sound investment.”

“They’llalso go through basically from University all the way down to the riverfront toidentify development opportunities,” Greenham said. “This is an example: Theymay look at the Studio Theater, address the needs to bring that building back(with redevelopment), maybe suggest what might be the best use for that space,tie a dollar amount to it, and also possibly suggest investors for thatbuilding.”

Theplan also will offer input on whether some one-way streets should be convertedback to two-way.

“Thetraffic people at cities usually want to get traffic in and out as smoothly aspossible,” Greenham said. “Downtown districts in the urban core really want toslow people down a little bit.”

Twoadvantages of slowing traffic: Vehicles wouldn’t drive as quickly pastbusinesses that are interested in selling them things, and pedestrians don’tlike to cross streets where the vehicles are moving too quickly.

Consultantswill examine whether the downtown should be broken into separate districts.

“There’sa couple of groups — not my organization — one wanted to name it I think artscentral district, and there’s another that wants to name it a historic downtowncanal district,” she said. “What we’re trying to determine from this plan are,‘Do we even need to district? If we did district, what would be the propernames? Where would those boundaries be?’

“Thepeople that were talking about districting only wanted to do a couple blocks,not addressing the entire downtown,” Greenham said. “It may be something thatthey come back and say, ‘No, don’t district,’ or ‘District.’ But that’ssomething we’re trying to gather.”

Ifyou want to receive emails inviting your feedback as the plan is developed, youcan sign up atwww.downtownmiddletown.org.

Why care about downtown’s future?

MicaGlaser, one of three owners of the Windamere Event Venue andArt Gallery, which opened in October at 2 S. Main St., hopes the plan willcontinue downtown improvements.

“Mymain hope is that everything that has been in the works comes under oneumbrella so it’s a more cohesive plan, and it’s not a variety of people tryingto do different things,” Glaser said. “Just so everybody has the clear visionof what can be done, and where it can go, because I think Middletown’s downtownhas a lot of potential in it, and it just needs to be more focused, so peoplecan see a bigger impact, and people can see things changing.

“Ithink if they see a lot of progress, then it will start changing their attitudeon what can happen for the rest of the town,” said Glaser, whose receptionfacility already has 32 events booked into 2017.

Shelives near Daytonand sees a lot of potential in the downtown.

“Otherwise,we wouldn’t have opened our business down here — so from the outside, we see alot of great things in Middletown.Unfortunately, the people who live here all don’t have that same outlook,”Glaser said.

Glaserwould love to see a hotel open in the downtown.

“Ineed hotel rooms. I will shout that from the top of my building,” she said. “Ihave a lot of weddings coming in that are 150-225 people, and even if they’renot out-of-town, they still don’t want to drive home that night, possibly, andthe possibility of a downtown hotel would be great, because otherwise, all thatbusiness will be pushed up by the highway, and then these businesses down heredon’t benefit from that.”

RogerDaniel, who owns the former Rogers Jewelers headquarters building at 1050 Central Ave.and created two retail spaces inside, including Flores Leather Works,which makes handcrafted leather products, is bullish on the area.

“Ithink the downtown’s come a long way in, say, the last three or four years,”Daniel said. “There’s a number of businesses that are expected to start up herein the next five to six months, and I think the downtown plan just might getpeople a little more excited about downtown.”

Hehopes the plan will encourage residential development.

“Inmy opinion, that’s the thing that’s needed most downtown. You need peopleliving downtown,” Daniel said. “Part of urban living is to walk out your door,walk down the street, get a coffee, maybe get an alcoholic beverage orwindow-shop, go to a bookstore.”

Why should non-downtown residents care?

Greenhamsays downtown improvements will not happen at the expense of other parts oftown. In fact, an improved downtown can provide new tax revenues that help thecity as a whole, she said.

“DowntownMiddletown is the face of Middletown, whether they (critics of downtowndevelopment efforts) like it or not,” Greenham said. “Whether they think theEast End is a better representation, when visitors or travelers want to findout who Middletown is, they come to downtown Middletown,” Greenhamsaid. “They should all care — this is the living room of our community.”

Here’swhy Middletownresidents who don’t live downtown should care about the future of the city’score, she says: “We have a giant district full of buildings that are vacant —they’re not contributing to property taxes, sales taxes, and they look bad onour community.

“Wefeel that if we can turn this around, make it a walkable, thriving urban-coreenvironment, that only means more money to schools, increased property valuesand increased quality of life,” Greenham said.

Five MiddletownStudies

Hereare five studies being conducted in Middletown,and the focus of each:

·                      Middletown Master Plan — Conducted by McBride Dale Clarion — an overarching planfor the entire city of Middletownthat will tie together all the other related city plans. It will considerfuture land-use possibilities, identify key topics that should make up thecity’s “planning agenda,” and evaluate priority development sites.

·                      Community Visioning — Handled by Middletown Moving Forward Inc. and theCommunity Building Institute — will identify neighborhood and economic issues,create a vision statement that “clearly defines Middletown’s desired future,”and recommend solutions and strategies to achieve them.

·                      Downtown Master Plan — A project of Downtown Middletown Inc. and a consultantto be named next week — unlike the Middletown Master Plan, this plan will focuson downtown and how it connects with other parts of the city. It will evaluateexisting conditions, recommend a comprehensive streetscape design and preferredarchitectural styles for the downtown, suggest future land-use patterns,evaluate market demands for the downtown, offer information about prime sitesfor developments that development companies can use, and suggest fundingstrategies to achieve the plan’s aims.

·                      Housing Study — Handled by Danter Group — a comprehensive housing studyfor the entire city that City Manager Doug Adkins has said he hopes “will tellus what kind of housing we need in Middletown, to start balancing our housingstock and get our property values up.” It will evaluate demand for housing inthe city at various price points, evaluate housing trends and growthprojections, and will give special consideration to studying housing in thedowntown.

·                      Bicycle/Pedestrian Plan — Will evaluate existing conditions, analyze where newbike/pedestrian connections should be made, prioritize the potential projects,and determine the types of paths that should be built, and what amenities thepaths should have.

Thepeople creating the five plans “are all working together — all these plans, andall these consultants,” says Mallory Greenham, executive director of DowntownMiddletown Inc. “We’re not duplicating efforts, but it’s real easy to getconfused (about why there are so many plans)…. They just happen to be happeningat the same time.”

Source: City of Middletownand Journal-News research