» Downtown meeting yields ideas for upgrading city
By Lori Newman, Editor
Sunday, April 10, 2011 | No comments posted.
Another meeting, another flurry of ideas, and Reedsport is one step closer to creating a plan for revitalizing its downtown and waterfront areas.
Nearly four dozen residents attended a community meeting at the Lower Umpqua Senior Center on March 30. In a replay of last spring’s community workshops to create a plan for Rainbow Plaza, attendees broke up into six smaller groups to brainstorm for ideas and then prioritize them.
“There were some consistent themes that emerged from all the groups,” said Reedsport City Manager Scott Somers. Some of those themes are:
n Develop the boardwalk from the Umpqua Discovery Center to downtown or along the river.
n Redeveloping the Knife River property, getting rid of the gravel pile at the east entrance to town.
n Enhance the look of properties on Fir Avenue with a façade redevelopment plan that makes Reedsport’s “Main Street” look as if it’s more unified, and perhaps has a theme.
Columbia Planning and Design consultants Scott Keillor and Todd Chase heard everyone’s comments, and recorded them. By late May or early June, Somers said, they will have developed two concept plans to present to the city council, community members and city staff for further discussion and/or approval.
The city hired Columbia Planning and Design to oversee the planning process with grant funding from the state’s Transportation and Growth Management program.
The overall project is expected to cost around $115,000, with $102,350 coming in grant funds. This grant requires an 11 percent match of $12,650 cash or in-kind services from the city.
“This plan is about four times the size of last year’s Rainbow Plaza design process,” Somers said. “It’s actually a continuation of two years ago when we had the Main Street meetings.”
Main Street Oregon is a preservation-based economic development program
Three themes emerged from that process in April 2009, Somers said, including the need to develop a concept plan for Rainbow Plaza �” the dirt lot between downtown and the Umpqua Discovery Center �” the need to create a “branding theme” for downtown, and a façade improvement program.
“So the wish lists haven’t changed much. ... We’d love to have money available to grant business and property owners on Highway 38 ... to give them 50/50 matching grants to incentivize them to fix up their storefronts, but right now we just don’t have the money,” Somers said.
