First there were 13. Then there were 40. Then there were 125.
It’s beginning to look like revitalizing Sweet Home’s business district may be gaining some momentum.
Suffice to say it was encouraging not only to see 125-plus people at the Community Center on Tuesday night, Feb. 4, but that they were people ready to do some talking.
And they got to talk a lot. Facilitator John Morgan, who spent the first 10 minutes introducing himself and talking about his own ties to Sweet Home (his family used to own a filling station here, he said), posed eight questions, ranging from what has made Sweet Home what it is (values, physical characteristics, changes over the last 50 years), what has worked and what hasn’t worked for Sweet Home, hooks – why people would want to come to or be part of Sweet Home, and ideas for improvement.
Then he turned the crowd loose to brainstorm and share ideas on those topics at various tables around the room.
It worked. On file at City Hall is a document of 27 single-spaced, typed pages listing the people’s responses to those questions.
The ideas section is particularly interesting. Here are a few of the suggestions that seem particularly worthy of more consideration (and there were plenty more):
– Using empty storefronts for mini museums;
– Community Saturday markets;
– A coordinated mini mall;
– Greenways and walkways to make the downtown more inviting;
– Concerts in the park;
– Logging motif for the city representing Sweet Homes heyday;
– Nature/bicycle trails;
– Technological support so people can work from home.
There were also cries for a clothing store, a Bi-Mart, a “good” car wash, and an “old-time” ice cream parlor. And there was much, much more.
Obviously, we don’t have space here to go into all the details of what people suggested. You can get more in the story on page 1 of today’s issue.
The point is, there were a lot of ideas, many of them worth some serious consideration.
What has to happen now is that everybody needs to come back on March 20 to help take this to the next level.
Since the assessment team visited Sweet Home six weeks ago and decided to take their professional advice to other communities, we’ve visited all four of those communities: Lebanon, Philomath, Newport and Toledo.
One thing that’s instantly evident in each of those communities is that they have far fewer vacant buildings than Sweet Home.
Yes, they have less parking issues, more pocket parks (at least in Toledo and Lebanon) and some other nice touches that fit right in with Vicki Dugger and Pam Silbernagel’s vision. But the fact that something is happening behind the windows along the business district makes a big difference.
We’ll need to talk about nature trails. We’ll need to talk about parking. We’ll need to talk about how to encourage building owners and business people to adhere to architectural standards that would freshen up the downtown and keep neighbors’ property values from plummeting.
But if we can get the economic climate in Sweet Home to the point that people are eager to invest here, where prospective business owners will go ahead and put in that ice cream shop (maybe in conjunction with some late-night coffee and pastries where people can hang out in a friendly, relaxed atmosphere on Friday or Saturday nights after the basketball game or the movie), where we can get that car wash people keep talking about, then we’ll know we’re making the right choices.
You can get a copy of the responses from the last meeting at City Hall. Take a look, do some thinking and show up at the next meeting ready to do some more business.