The Observation Deck

While we are on the rant about money being spent with few results, I'm curious about Main Street.

What is the cities expenditures to date for this group? Did we commit to $110,00 for 2 years? Will we end up spending more for this?

Are they working with the results of the previous Main Street Group that we worked with during the Cain Administration - or is that a shelf item that they aren't using.

Other than host some meetings, and put up flower baskets that the city had to pay for that really are truly the worst in the county by my review and develop a logo - what are their results? In terms of the flower baskets, I dare say having Ms. Weber of Weber Architects do them most likely would have resulted in much higher quality at a lower cost. Or a dozen other people. I know we were very excited that we "WON" the honor of being picked to invest our money in this group? But have we really won anything? Do we have a Return on our Investment?

I'm not being negative - just wondering if we should invest this money elsewhere or hold their feet to the fire like a real business would for some tangilble results for our investment.

I was just contacted and was told that the amount was with mainstreet $30,000 to win being picked and $30,000 to start plus $13,000 for city pitching in on the baskets plus the $110,00 this year which is $183,000 for this year. Again, please correct if this is not right.

Lynn: Not sure who your "contact" was but your figures are incorrect. The City provided $30,000 for 2006 plus an additional one-time allocation of $10,000 for the flower baskets for a total of $40,000. We requested another allocation of $30,000 for operating costs for 2007. Grand total is $70,000.
As for your other points, Yes we are implementing the Main Street connections study. If you read that report, it recommends forming a non-profit community development corporation. LCPI / Main Street is a direct result of that report. Also the strategies for downtown revitalization outlined in that report are the same strategies that we are working towards, such as improving the image of downtown and strengthening the sense of place, upgrading the streetscape and amenities to encourage pedestrian activity, creating gateways and signage, and attracting new businesses.
The Main Street Program is comprehensive and incremental. Revitalization won't happen overnight. It is a gradual process that begins with small steps, eventually building the capacity to tackle larger, more complicated projects and problems. There is no magic bullet, no big fix answers, no easy solutions.
LCPI / Main Street Lakewood is a grassroots community driven organization. Anyone who cares about Lakewood with energy, enthusiasm and a willingness to do some hard work is encouraged to participate and volunteer!!!! What committee can I sign you up for???
Jennifer Hooper
Executive Director of LCPI / Main Street Lakewood
521-0655
jhooper@lcpi.org

Is the Main Street study the study that mentioned they were surprised that Detroit Ave. did not have more traffic during rush hour?

Is it the study that wants to narrow some Lakewood streets or create a pedestrian mall?

Does anyone have a website detailing the Main Street study and activities? It is probably on here somewhere, but I missed it.

Just asking - I know others would be interested, too. I'm not expressing an opinion for or against Main Street. I try to refrain from making any opinions pro or con regarding government or city expenditures. Thanks anyone

Doug

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If I may chime in regarding the Main Street Project, my understanding was that the model that has been used in other cities with great success was a long range plan. Maybe I'm missing out on some of the history that is creating a somewhat negative view or just simply misinterpreting the tone of some of the posts here but I think that this project will benefit the city of Lakewood. While benchmarks and deliverables are certainly a reasonable request, I get an anxious feeling that those items will be pounced on for not being enough. Again, this project needs time to cook and rushing it through has never been the plan.

Which cities had great success? Just asking not taking sides. thx

Doug

Here's a link to what I believe to be some cities that have worked with Main Street. http://www.heritageohio.org/directory.htm

There's also a website for Main Street at www.mainstreet.org

Hope it helps with the discussion.

Thanks, Shawn.

The Main Street Program is the most successful venture of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. I would encourage anyone who is interested to look at the website, which is listed above. The program has a four-point approach: Organization, Design, Promotion, and Economic Restructuring, with four corresponding committees. I don't think it is really fair to ask the Executive Director for a list of "deliverables," because this really is meant to be a grassroots, community-based effort. While Jennifer is sheparding the process, getting to know the stakeholders, business owners, etc. much of the activity depends on those committees and how active and involved they are. I would also reiterate what Jennifer said: There are no quick fixes. Main Street is all about getting people organized and making incremental improvements. I do know from my involvement on one committee that, besides the community meeting and flower baskets, Lakewood Main Street has sponsored a clean-up crawl of Detroit, worked on planning landscape improvements and a pocket park at the Board of Education and received a large grant to complete a streetscape plan of Detroit Avenue. This is really tremendous, as many Main Street organizations spend their first couple of years just trying to get organized and get committees formed.

In my opinion, The Main Street Program coming to Lakewood is one of the most exciting and promising things to happen in Lakewood in recent years. I hope folks will give Jennifer your support (and time) and not be too quick to criticize. It isn't an easy task to take the many different property and business owners and to get them all onboard and familiar with the Main Street approach. The Main Street philosophy is that traditional business districts can think and operate somewhat like a shopping center with one owner when they have someone getting them organized and working together.

Michael Fleenor
Director of Preservation Programs
Cleveland Restoration Society

Jennifer,

I must apologize. My source is excellent almost always. But I admit that I found no evidence in the Meeting minutes of council other than the two following items that you cited.

ORDINANCE NO. 83-05 – AN ORDINANCE authorizing the Mayor or his designee to enter into agreement(s) with Lakewood Community Progress Incorporated for the Main Street Initiative in an amount of Sixty Thousand Dollars ($60,000.00) to be provided in two annual amounts of Thirty Thousand Dollars ($30,000). .(PLACED ON 1st READING & REFERRED TO THE FINANCE COMMITTEE 9/6/05, REPORTED OUT ON, PLACED ON 2ND READING AND RECOMMENDED FOR ADOPTION 9/19/05)

and

ORDINANCE NO. 48-06- AN ORDINANCE authorizing the Mayor or his designee to enter
into agreement9s) with Lakewood Community Progress Incorporated for the Main Street
Initiative in an amount of Seventy Thousand Dollars ($70,000) to be provided in two
annual amounts of Forty thousand Dollars ($40,000) and Thirty Thousand Dollars
($30,000) respectively. (Pg. 88)
Motion by Mr. Seelie, seconded by Ms. Madigan, to suspend the rules requiring this
Ordinance be read on three separate days and place Ordinance No. 48-06 on final
reading.
Yeas: Antonio, Butler, Demro, Dever, FitzGerald, Madigan, Seelie
Nays: None
Motion adopted. Rules suspended.



However my contact still stand by the $110,000. Was that a goal of Main Street? Did the city commit the $30,000 per year and you were to raise the rest through Lakewood Businesses? or other donations? I know have my curiousity raised because again my contact is 99% of the time right.

The other main street study we worked with and it was excellent until the previous administration took it and implied that it suggested bulldozing the West End, which of course it did not.

Doug is right that the first Main Street study did suggest traffic calming ideas. I would love to study ideas where we narrowed the streets and used angled parking. That would help many businesses on Detroit. We could cost effectively study this and see if it helped or hurt. In the place of 3 cars now, parked parallel, 8 would fit parked at an angle. That is a lot of help for many of the small businesses.

I think some of the street scapes on Coventry in Cleveland Heights would fit in well in Lakewood. I also love the way they have a small footprint parking garage on the main street with it being much larger behind the buildings.

I didn't realize that anyone outside of the footprint could be on a committee.

The areas that I am interested in are:

1) Sustainable energy. I think working on ways to make Lakewood a sustainable energy community would put us on the map.

2) WiFi - in Don and my article on Anaheim, we talk about how they implemented WiFi there without a penny of tax dollars spent. Actually this article contains many very inexpensive ideas that Lakewood could implement fairly easily.

3) Angled parking - traffic calming ideas.

4) I'd be happy to assist on brochures or websites for Lakewood Businesses. But we have some great resources - the Observer and the Chamber. But they need to have some PR about them. Maybe that is where the Observer could help. We don't have to reinvent the wheel - just make it known what services we have.

5) I do not have a green thumb. . But I do know wonderful people in this community that do and I would be happy to give you their names.

I did attend the meeting with Mr. Fleenor and was quite impressed with what his group is doing. Perhaps I don't know what your group is doing - other than the baskets and I admit that I have been somewhat critical about the height of the hangers. (way too high compared to other cities.)

I have worked with the task force on eminent domain in Ohio and they cite your group as one of the best for improving cities so that they never feel so bad that they need to resort to such draconian concepts as eminent domain for economic development. So you do come very highly recommended.

I do appreciate you posting here - and I hope you will continue to do so. I think citizens asked some great questions and I too would love to hear about the different committees and what they are doing - what your results are showing etc. Thanks.

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