By Cory Smith
Lexington officials are ready to begin reviewing the Lexington Downtown Enhancement Project, a package of 25 proposals that could make parking downtown easier, hide utility lines underground and draw visitors and residents to local businesses.
The latest in a series of public forums on the project is scheduled for Sept. 30. The goal of the project, according to the final proposal, is “creating a more attractive, vibrant, walkable, bike-able downtown to which local residents, students, visitors, shopkeepers, and business people are attracted.”
The plan has taken form over the past year. It was prompted by the economic downturn of the past several years, which raised concerns among city officials and the community about the state of downtown, said Michael Zehner, the city’s director of planning and development.
“They were concerned, seeing vacancies in downtown and wondering what could the city do to make it a more vibrant area, and make it more attractive to business owners, visitors and residents,” Zehner said.
A steering committee of city officials, residents and business owners began formulating the plan last fall, followed by two public forums where citizens responded to early proposals. The city hired consultants to help draw up the final proposal.
Committee members got a lot of comments from the public along the way, Mayor Mimi Elrod said.
“We heard from people that did not want to take any parking off the streets,” Elrod said. “We thought about widening the sidewalks, and people were delighted about the idea of some sort of bike plane. Some people said we need to keep our historical nature because that is important … but to just make it more lively.”
David Grist, president and CEO of Cornerstone Bank, thinks the downtown plan will help not only businesses but the entire community.
“I really was hoping it would have some kind of economic impact and bring people to town to shop, eat and bank, obviously,” Grist said. “But to make that happen, you have got to get people here. If we can bring the community together and bring them downtown and get the people more comfortable in this space, it will have a bigger impact on the businesses as well.”
But city officials and residents alike are worried about going too far.
“They did not want it to become ‘Anyplace, USA’,” Zehner said. “It was abundantly clear from the beginning that we needed to make improvements and not changes.”
For example, Zehner said, planting too many trees would diminish the city’s architectural history by hiding historic buildings.
“Lexington historically hasn’t had trees in the downtown,” he said, “so we significantly edited what was being recommended based on that comment.”
The final proposal includes low-cost and no-cost projects, such as repainting downtown’s brown traffic lights black. But it also calls for more time-consuming and expensive changes, such as burying utility lines along Jefferson Street.
“For those items that cost more money, we’ll have to evaluate them during the next budget cycle, which will begin probably December or January, to see if there are any funds available,” Zehner said. “In addition to that, we’d be looking at whether there are any grants out there that we can apply for to implement portions of [the plan].”
Planners initially discussed keeping Main Street one way but reducing it from the current two lanes to a single lane. Now they are considering making the street two-way from White Street to Nelson Street. That would reroute traffic from the residential area along Jefferson Street.
“It might [also] create new opportunities for businesses along Main Street, so that would be interesting,” Zehner said. “It would have a large impact.”
The full proposal is available at http://www.lexingtonva.gov/pdfs/documents/Lexington%20Final%20Plan%20090513.pdf.
The Sept. 30 public forum will begin at 6 p.m. at Lylburn Downing Middle School.