Downtown revitalization plan ready

Ordinances will concern diagonal parking, residential use and business incentives.
By PETER H. MILLIKEN
VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF
WARREN -- The city's first comprehensive downtown revitalization plan recommends continued city safety and health code enforcement to eliminate blight in the residential area on downtown's northern fringe.
It also recommends better use of the community reinvestment area -- a mechanism for tax abatements -- for improvements, explained Anthony Iannucci Jr., director of the Warren Redevelopment and Planning Corp., which coordinated the plan's development.
The locally generated master plan is to be unveiled at a public forum at 6 p.m. Monday at the Comfort Inn on Courthouse Square. This is a "very important meeting for the future of this city," Mayor Michael O'Brien said.
The plan, titled "Warren G.R.O.W.s," stands for Grassroots Revitalization of Warren and has been a year in the making by more than 70 volunteers. It says the downtown revival effort "has to be comprehensive. In other words, just a design plan is not sufficient," said Iannucci.
"This isn't a project that has a starting point and a finishing point. It's an ongoing program of development for downtown," Iannucci said. "The theme is that we need to pay attention to all aspects of the downtown and that we can't ignore any parts."
Those involved
During the plan's development, the group of local residents and business leaders was divided into four committees: organization and steering, design, economic restructuring and promotion and marketing.
The home-grown plan covers commercial, residential and governmental initiatives, and it contains 20 goals and 65 strategies for achieving them, according to O'Brien.
The committees that developed the goals and strategies will now be responsible for achieving them and will develop annual work plans, including budgets and timetables for doing so, Iannucci said. The tasks will be prioritized, he said.
"You can't have our committees work on everything all at once. You'll do nothing well if you do it that way," he explained. "The program that we're following emphasizes quality, changing attitudes, and self-help, and it's implementation-oriented. We're going into the implementation phase."
Although downtown is "underutilized," Iannucci said it features "tremendous assets," including historic architecture, green space, good roads, the Mahoning River, an amphitheater and a riverwalk. "We need to emphasize our assets," and use them to develop downtown, he said.
Recommendations
To make downtown more user-friendly and attractive, the design committee recommends improved signage, designated crosswalks, and streetscape improvements, including sidewalk repairs.
"It's the central hub of activity, which encompasses the business activities, the government activities, the residential," the mayor said.
The effort is based on the Main Street approach developed by the National Trust for Historic Preservation. The plan calls for the city to apply for a formal designation as a participating Main Street community.
Urban revitalization and historic preservation experts from the Columbus-based Downtown Ohio Inc. addressed a downtown seminar concerning that approach this past fall, but no outside consulting firms were hired to write the GROW report.
Based on the plan, the mayor said ordinances will be requested of city council concerning diagonal parking, residential use and business incentives concerning downtown. "We'll need council's assistance to make sure that this planning and this process takes place," the mayor said.
The plan also addresses new facades for buildings and calls for creation of new design review committees. Parts of the plan will be supported by government and other parts by private donations, the mayor said.
milliken@vindy.com