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RiverCOG begins regional membership with Connecticut Main Street Center to boost town‑center strategies
Summary
Connecticut Main Street Center will work with RiverCOG this year on a ‘constellation’ approach to town centers — launching surveys, workshops and town‑level reports to support the regional POCD and SEDS and to craft transformational strategies for downtowns.
Kristen Lopez, senior director of programs at the Connecticut Main Street Center, told RiverCOG that the organization's regional membership will focus its first year on implementing Goal 2.8 of RiverCOG's Plan of Conservation and Development (POCD) by mapping town‑center roles, conducting brief Main Street management surveys for each town, launching a resident connectivity/vision survey and convening at least one workshop (tentatively Oct. 30).
"We really see ourselves as a strategic partner here to help RiverCOG implement its regional POCD and SEDS," Lopez said, describing a mix of workshops, surveys and town‑level reports that will feed a regional set of transformational strategies. She said municipal members will retain access to the Main Street Center's online platform and that RiversCOG towns would receive outreach templates to help promote the resident survey.
Lopez said the work will produce a short, iterative set of deliverables — individual town reports and a consolidated regional report — and encouraged each municipality to identify staff or a small cohort (economic‑development commission members, planners, EDCs) to carry the work forward.
