Steps to Creating a Revitalized Downtown

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hard to recruit a new business or start-up business to purchase or lease a building that has a leaky roof, old carpets, outdated electrical, etc.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!

An Attractive Community Starts with Us

About 4 years ago, the Planning Department conducted a series of community visioning initiatives. These included public meetings at all the elementary schools and various surveys requesting feedback from the community. All this information what compiled and a master list of goals were created. The purpose of this initiative was to identify what the citizens and residence of Elizabethton desired in their community and what they wanted their community to look like in 10 to 20 years.

One of the goals that came out of this initiative was to improve building frontages and appearances throughout the city – essentially, people wanted a more attractive city. So, the question becomes how do we do this? How do we make a more attractive city and what will it cost? Well, unfortunately, this is going to be an unpopular answer but it is through regulation.

It is our citizens, residence, local businesses, and elected officials job to determine what we want our city to look and feel like. It is then up to our elected and appointed officials to ensure that we are working to create that look and feel in our community.

Many of the developers and businesses we see come into Elizabethton don’t live here. They come in, want to know the cheapest way they can build what they want to build, build it, then turn around and leave the community having a check from the business or development mailed to them. And, quite frankly, I don’t blame them! That’s part of their goal, to invest as little as possible and maximize how much money they make. But the point is that they don’t have to look at the development daily or live with a negative reputation in the community, because if they receive that check they’re not setting foot in our community.

When I first started there was one statement I made that I thought was extremely pivotal in how we think through a potential development. The statement is, “Do not give in on what your standards are just because you think a business or development won’t build here. The developer will be here today, collect their money, and be gone tomorrow, but you and your fellow citizens will have to live with that decision every day. Make sure it’s something you can live with.”

If we desire a more attractive community, we need to create regulations that require developers to make buildings that are more attractive. Maybe we require them to use traditional Appalachian building materials for the facades to make Elizabethton unique. Maybe we require more trees and less parking spaces. Maybe we require that they install a bike rack and sidewalks so that others without vehicles can easily visit their business, because that’s the type of community we desire. There are many things we can do, but our citizens must support and stand behind elected and appointed officials when we enforce these requirements. They must be willing to say to a developer, “If you don’t want to create something that will make our community attractive, then maybe our community isn’t for your business.” Let’s talk about it!

2018 Planning Preview

As we start a new year, it reminds to look forward and set goals for the next 12 months. There are a variety of projects the Planning Commission and our Department have been working on towards the end of last year that will culminate in 2018.

The first project that will probably see completion is the Major Thoroughfare Plan. The Planning Commission started the project towards the middle of last year and gathered a lot of public input on the proposals. Along with the adoption of this plan will come the implementation portion which calls for new roadway designs, Milligan Highway improvements, and the new Southside Road improvement between Mary Patton Highway and US 19E.

The other project that you may begin to hear about is the Land Use Plan. The Planning Commission has been calling for a new Land Use Plan for the city for the past 4 years and we are now reaching the point where we can dedicate the time to undertaking such a project. The Land Use Plan will provide guidance to the Commission, city staff, and to other departments in the city about what types of land-uses or development should be located where in the city and the planning region in the county. This allows utilities to prepare the appropriate infrastructure in different areas and guides the Commission when a rezoning or development request comes before them. The Plan will also provide guidance for changes to the City’s development regulations such as parking requirements, aesthetic requirements, and setback and building height requirements.

Additionally, our department has been working on three different economic development initiatives that we anticipate implementing this year. The first and certainly most talked about is the Tax Increment Financing Redevelopment Plan for West Elk Avenue. In partnership with the County, we anticipate this initiative will be fully implemented in late winter or early spring opening up opportunities for redevelopment in the area behind Walmart and around the Bemberg Building.

We have also been working on the implementation of a new downtown loan program in order to help small businesses and building owners make improvements to their buildings with low interest loans. We hope that this will encourage new businesses to move or start up in downtown and improve the quality of the buildings that are currently in downtown.

Similarly, we are also working on two new entrepreneurship programs that we also hope to implement one early in 2018 and the other in summer of 2018. Both of these programs are geared to help local small businesses get started, be successful long-term, and help provide guidance and assistance in obtaining capital needed. These programs could also drive new small businesses into downtown and elsewhere around the city.

2018 is already shaping up to be a busy year, but many of the initiatives and activities that we will be undertaking are and have been needed in our community. We are excited and looking forward to measuring where we stand as a department and a city at the end of 2018. And, most importantly, we believe these activities will help enhance Elizabethton and make it more like a community you want to live in. Let’s talk about it!

Southside Road may be the Future for Elizabethton

To people who use Elk Avenue daily for commuting to and from work, it comes as no surprise that this, the busiest road in Carter County, is quickly reaching its capacity. Additionally, to some of the residents along West and East G Street, it comes as no surprise that this little three lane road is also quickly reaching capacity – especially from Kiwanis Park to the Health Department.

The need for another east/west route in the city is growing. While we are not anticipating G Street to reach its maximum capacity in the next 10 years, there are portions of West Elk Avenue that are projected to get worse – especially from Milligan Highway to Mary Patton Highway.

The obvious answer is to add more lanes to West Elk Avenue/Broad Street and maybe another lane to West G Street, but the reality is this is not going to happen. Adding another lane to the south side of the road is impossible because of the banked railroad (what is now the Tweetsie Trail) and adding another lane to the north side of the road is extremely cost prohibitive because it would require purchasing commercial land and likely demolishing many buildings all along that side of the road like Zaxby’s, Chick-fil-a, Applebee’s, Taco Bell, Sonic, etc. West G Street, of course, has a high density of single-family and multi-family development already close to the road and, much like Elk Avenue, would be extremely cost prohibitive to add an additional lane.

The Planning Commission is currently drafting the city’s Major Thoroughfare Plan which analyzes traffic flow and patterns in the city and proposes making improvements or even creating new roads through the city. The reality of limited improvements along West Elk Avenue/Broad Street and G Street has been realized by this body and they have come up with another solution to improve traffic in Elizabethton in the future – Southside Road.

They have proposed creating a new, east/west minor arterial route along the existing Southside Road right-of-way which would connect Mary Patton Highway and US 19E. Their proposal limits the size of the road to a G Street-type road – two travel lanes, one center turn lane, and sidewalks. This would allow the city to make improvements to an existing right-of-way (which is a lot cheaper than completely building a new road), make Southside Road safer, and create another thoroughfare which would alleviate up to 14,000 cars per day (about half of what currently is on West Elk Avenue) from West Elk Avenue/Broad Street and West G Street. This proposal would also provide easier commuting for residence who live near the Douglas neighborhood or Whitney Estates neighborhood.

Now, don’t get too excited because this project will likely take 10 or more years before you would even be able to drive on it and assuming the plan is approved. We estimate the cost of this improvement at just over $40 million which will be even harder to find in the city budget and grant funds. But, none-the-less, we are thinking ahead and trying to anticipate and solve problems for the future. What are your thoughts on this proposal? Good idea, bad idea? Let’s talk about it!