3.0. HRSR 05-08-2001 - Laserfiche WebLink

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CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS • Establish Downtown as the Community's Center of Activity Benefits can be derived to Downtown businesses from focusing community activities in the Downtown area. Holding events in the Downtown as a way of increasing business activity and enhancing Downtown's image as the center of community life. Creating a plaza between the Cinema Professional Plaza and Dicks Main Tap, along with a fishing pier and river walk, would provide an excellent location to hold events and other festivals. The plaza, fishing pier, and river walk would also help tie the Downtown businesses to the Mississippi River, which is one of the Downtowns greatest assets, but is currently largely under utilized. Promotions must be well-organized. It is better to hold a few,well-planned promotions for the downtown, than many promotions that do not have the potential for a significant impact. In between major promotions, downtown can have smaller ongoing advertising and individual store promotions to maintain a high level of customer awareness. Make Downtown An Attractive Place to Do Business During the interviews with Downtown businesses, several interviewees suggested there is a lack of building maintenance. The physical appearance of buildings, along with Downtown's public spaces and streetscape, are important to attract customers to the Downtown. In a shopping center, common area spaces must be well-maintained. The same is true of the streetscape in the Downtown. It serves as an enhancement of the individual store environment and its attractiveness or unattractiveness can serve to attract or detract customers from coming to Downtown. The same is true of building exteriors. Building exteriors must present an attractive image to customers. Maintenance of buildings and upgrading of exteriors must be an ongoing practice. In many downtowns however, the economic vitality has suffered with the result that occupancy may have dropped, revenues are sluggish and building owners may be obtaining rents that will not justify substantial reinvestment in physical structures. One effort of a downtown revitalization plan can be to provide incentives for downtown building owners to maintain, renovate and/or upgrade their buildings. Low-interest loans, grants and other programs can provide small owners with the ability to reinvest in their buildings to enhance the visual attractiveness of the shopping/business environment. These recommendations represent only a few of the many activities that are involved in an ongoing downtown marketing program. However, these activities can be the foundation on which to build to improve the economic vitality of the Downtown core. •