Downtown revitalization plan starts to take shape.
By Blake Sebring in The News Sentienel
Fort Wayne got a glimpse of its potential future Tuesday night.
Residents must become involved in the planning process and apply political pressure if that future is to materialize, however.
"You are expecting 300,000 new visitors per year to the Grand Wayne Center and library, but what will they do? Will they just walk by? The challenge is to develop downtown into a regional destination," said architect and planner Gianni Longo.
About 50 people showed up at the Embassy Theatre to check out Longo's part of the city's Downtown Blueprint Plus Action plan. Mayor Graham Richard began the effort in April at the midpoint of the five-year downtown revitalization plan.
"We are trying to find the vision of what downtown Fort Wayne could potentially become, and we want then to translate the vision into the policies, to guide public policy and private investment in downtown," Longo said.
"We want to design the public places and the buildings to be the interpreter of the vision. Then we want to identify the site-specific catalysts that we can use to invest in the city and attract other investors."
Those catalysts include a number of suggestions: a youth sports complex that would include an aquatic park with recreational and competitive pools, an expansion of Lawton Park, a new baseball stadium next to the Grand Wayne Center, converted lofts to encourage people to live downtown, and a buildup of business along Harrison Street. Existing property and empty lots could be converted to make it work, he said.
Longo, whom the city hired for $62,000, said the core of downtown has a walking distance of 1,200 feet, and the key is to expand that area with more parks and more attractions people would be willing to walk to. He envisions rebuilding downtown into an area that would draw pedestrians and families.
"We have to work on the notion that good parking does not mean always finding a spot three feet away from where you are going," he said. "We need to start developing the notion of parking and walking. Do we have to have parking available three feet away all the time? You need to change the attitude of people toward downtown."
Longo said part of the plan might include restructuring current traffic patterns and building onto existing infrastructure.
"What you have now is a vision, but it's going to take time," he said. "As you move forward, everything you do should point toward that vision. I have no intention of presenting a plan that can happen overnight. Many of the things we talked about can happen, but may take 10 to 15 years."
Longo, whose firm, ACP Vision and Planning, also is working with the city and county on the Plan-It Allen! comprehensive plan, said his next step is to develop directions for the city on how the plan could be put in place. He said Fort Wayne residents need to become involved to keep pushing the process along. He'll return to Fort Wayne in July for a final public meeting.
The city has issued a $10 million income tax-backed bond for downtown development and hopes to leverage the money with private investment.
"What do we want Fort Wayne to be like 20 years from now?" Richard asked. "We're going to continue to see good ideas that can be added to this."
Posted by Admin at June 8, 2005 01:06 PM