Benny Westcott
Members of the public will have an opportunity to weigh in on what changes they would like to see put in place by the city along the Main Street and Long Street corridors in the area between 9th to 18th Street at the first public meeting for the Downtown Streetscape and Parking Plan project on March 25 at the City Manager’s Office.
“(The downtown stretch between 9th and 18th) is the main area that we’re talking about when we think of Sweet Home’s downtown,” said Community and Economic Development Director Blair Larsen, who explained what particular elements of the downtown will be the focus of the upcoming project that the public can provide input on.
“Part of the look of downtown is the street right of way,” Larsen said. “This includes pedestrian areas, street lights, the design of where people walk, and how traffic flows. All of that is typically considered streetscape.”
“It’s a word that most people don’t know or understand, but streetscape is basically like landscape, only it’s the street. It’s everything in the right of way that you would find in a downtown area — any of the stuff that makes a downtown feel like a downtown is the streetscape.”
“The council has had a priority to really make downtown a more appealing place to be, and one that is more of a destination than what it is now,” said Larsen. “Now, there’s not a cohesive plan around what we have downtown. You want things to look consistent from one side of downtown to the other.”
“Having a plan in place can have huge effects on the way it feels to be in the downtown,” he adde
In late January the council approved spending $42,235 to engage Dougherty Landscape Associates of Eugene to produce a streetscape plan for the downtown area. The plan will include details about landscaping, benches and other street furniture, and other improvements intended to drive foot traffic, and therefore bring in more businesses
It will also include a parking study, a cost analysis, civil engineering analysis, and street lighting consultation.
Larsen told the council at that time that Dougherty has worked with several other towns that have state highways running through them, so the firm is experienced with the limitations that come with operating under the jurisdiction of ODOT, which is a challenge for Sweet Home in any improvements to Main Street.
Money for the plan is coming from the city’s Economic Development Fund.
Larsen stressed the importance of getting public input at the March 25 meeting.
“This is the residents’ city. We want them to have some say in what things look like and hear what their concerns are about the street and sidewalk,” he said. “We want to know mostly what kind of changes they would want to see that’s within the street right of way that would get them to come to downtown more often.”
“Tell us what you would like to see, tell us what you would want it to be like, so that we can get that in a plan. And then once you have an adopted plan, it’s easier to get grant funding for it or organize city funding for it. Then you can phase it, do a little bit at a time, and gradually get that downtown that we all want. But we want to make sure that we have that plan in place first so that by the time we get to the end we have something that matches what was done in the beginning.”
“There’s things that we’ve noticed that our downtown lacks that other communities have,” Larsen said. “We don’t have a downtown plaza. There’s not really a downtown gathering place that’s open-air, open space. We have parking lots, and the farmer’s market has set up in the parking lot between the old CIty Hall and the library in the past. But that’s just a parking lot. It’d be great if we had some place where you could have a farmer’s market, and you wouldn’t have to worry about making sure people aren’t parking there.”
“It’d be great if there was a small stage where a band could set up and play, and tables where people could sit and enjoy themselves,” he said.
Larsen touched on other goals that city staff has for the downtown.
“We want to improve pedestrian activity, make it feel like a nice place to walk around. We want improved landscaping. We recognize that some of those areas for street trees and for landscaping might impact parking along streets. So if we take away parking, we want to make sure that we’re replacing parking or that there’s adequate parking in that area. And so having a plan in place for where that parking’s going to be is important to us.”
He also put emphasis on what he sees as a need for more pedestrian focused lighting.
“We have some decorative streetlights in the median, but that just lights up landscaping. It doesn’t help any pedestrians. All of the rest of the streetlights in the downtown are designed to light up the roadway for drivers. They’re not designed to make pedestrians feel like they’re comfortable walking around.”
Larsen said he wants the project to focus on “things that are going to make it comfortable for people to spend time and, hopefully, money in the downtown.”
The consultants that the city hired to compose the downtown plan will take the initial input they receive from the March 25 meeting and then draw up some ideas for two more public meetings with the council and planning commission at later dates.
“We tell them what to do and what we want, and they find a way to get it designed in there,” said Larsen of the consultants.
“I’d say this (March 25) meeting is probably the most important because it really gets that immediate public feedback on what people want to see,” he said.
He suggested that the timetable for work to actually be done in regards to improving the downtown streetscape is a little uncertain.
“The intent behind this is not actually to get any shovels in the ground, but to have the plan so that we know exactly what improvements we are going to make and where. It’s not clear exactly when you would see physical changes. That’s all going to depend on how much we need to change, what the priorities are for making those changes, and then making sure we have the funding in place to do it,” he said.
“We would love to do more in other areas too, but the thought is, let’s make sure we have a cohesive plan for downtown first, and then later we can try to continue that look and feel elsewhere where it’s appropriate.”
Larsen wants any future changes to be authentic to the city.
“One of the reasons why I think the public input is so important is that we really want it to fit Sweet Home. We don’t want to be a different town. We want to be Sweet Home. And we want residents to tell us what that is. It’s one thing if the council has an idea of what they think Sweet Home is, but we really want the public to weigh in on that idea.
“What does it feel like to be in Sweet Home? What do you want it to feel like?”