Downtown redevelopment/revitalization has been a hot topic
in Elizabethton since I’ve been doing planning in Elizabethton – 9 years. I
have talked extensively about the different aspects or steps we need to take,
but not a lot about the big picture plan. How do we even get to the point of
talking about creating housing for downtown, or recruiting new businesses when
we don’t even have buildings ready to be renovated? Let’s look at that today.
One of the first steps we need to take is to develop a unified
vision for downtown. Ideally this would be in the form of a plan, but simply
writing some goals or characteristics down about the image we all have in our
heads is enough to get started. As a part of this step, we must ensure that the
City Council, Planning Commission, Business Owners, Property Owners, and our
citizens all (or mostly) agree on what that image looks like so that we can
move forward.
After we’ve developed the “picture” for downtown, we need to
organize. Structure and groups of the different stakeholders need to be created
or encouraged. There is a lot of work that will need to be done in the
aesthetics, economy, and property development in downtown and it’s something
that no one interest group can do solo.
Somewhat simultaneous with the previous action, all parties
must work to save and improve the quality of our downtown buildings. It is hard
to recruit a new business or start-up business to purchase or lease a building
that has a leaky roof, old carpets, outdated electrical, etc. After all,
downtown building owners are realistically competing against clean, newer, plain-vanilla-shell
spaces on the west side of the city. This can be very expensive and will likely
require incentives and assistance for building owners, but the payoff could be
great.
The next two steps – pedestrian friendliness and placemaking
– are somewhat the same. There is a saying used in the urban planning world
that if you want a street to be friendly for pedestrians, design it so a 7-year-old
or 70-year-old can comfortably walk across by themselves. Sure, it is
not exactly a scientific formula, but we need to evaluate our roads in downtown
against this concept. Would you allow your 7-year-old to cross the 3 lanes of
Elk Avenue traffic by themselves in downtown? Placemaking similarly encourages
pedestrians and people to congregate and often improve the aesthetics and
usability of an area.
Lastly, successfully completing the previous steps will
result in higher demand for businesses and ultimately housing. We need to
ensure quality housing options are available in and immediately around the
downtown area. This could include condos, townhouses, single-family homes, or
apartments, but a good mix is optimal. This will help generate additional
pedestrian activity in downtown and additional revenues for the businesses
there.
The most important thing we need to keep in mind during all
of this, is that revitalization won’t happen overnight, but over multiple years
or even a decade. Asheville has been working on their downtown since the 70s,
Jonesborough since the 80s, Greenville, SC since the 70s, Johnson City since
the 90s. Small and sustainable incremental change, I believe, will prove to be
best for downtown and best for the city overall. The important part is that we
start. Let’s talk about it!
