Downtown strategic plan recommends quick wins and long-term projects after community outreach

At a Feb. 10 committee meeting, the Economic Action Group presented a downtown strategic plan that pairs short-term, low-cost improvements with longer-term redevelopment recommendations based on extensive community engagement.

Dan Creason of the Economic Action Group said the city's $25,000 planning allocation was leveraged to about $200,000 through additional grants and foundation support, including a JobsOhio planning grant and funds from the Youngstown Foundation.

"This was fed strictly through community engagement," Creason said, noting more than 750 responses from interviews, patron surveys and student input from Youngstown State University.

Short-term implementation items already underway include a downtown events calendar distributed to businesses, an ambassador program and wayfinding and parking signage. Daniel Bancroft said the Youngstown Foundation provided $100,000 to address those "low-hanging fruit" items, and city partners such as the regional chamber and Cityscape will help implement programming.

Council members raised operational questions: Mike Ray asked for ambassador-interaction metrics and whether the ambassador program is the best use of resources, noting that simple counts of interactions would help assess effectiveness. He also flagged changing leisure markets, citing national declines in alcohol consumption as a factor that may change downtown demand.

City communications staff said the mayor has asked a cross-departmental review of communications tools (text alerts, newsletters and website alerts) to better reach residents and businesses and to reduce siloed messaging.

What's next: the plan will be presented to council and city staff said short-term items will be implemented over the next quarters; longer-term policy and funding recommendations will require additional approvals and budgets.