Consultant outlines BDD, five‑year action plan and public GIS to market Princeton properties

Cole McDaniel of Hometown Consulting presented a package of tools the city could use to spur downtown investment: a proposed Business Development District, a five‑year strategic action plan and a public-facing GIS with a commercial building inventory. McDaniel said the BDD boundary, goals and priorities were shaped by a community meeting and surveys and stressed the importance of implementation rather than filing a plan on a shelf.

"I'm not just the BDD guy," McDaniel told the council, summing up his broader role in program design and implementation. He said the strategic action plan will list priorities, assign responsibility, set timelines and identify potential funding sources such as ITEP and other state and federal programs. The plan is intended to be adoptable and useful in grant applications; McDaniel said he expects a draft the council and EDC can review by mid‑summer.

McDaniel demonstrated a web‑hosted GIS that will display corporate boundaries, parcels, zoning, ownership, building use and an inventory of available properties. The tool, he said, can include pocket listings, photos and links to county tax records and will update regularly so the city can market available space to developers and outside investors.

On implementation, McDaniel said the team will produce an application form for BDD incentives, a scoring matrix to evaluate projects (including sales tax/property tax impacts and local ownership), and a dashboard that tracks revenues, expenses and returns for projects funded by the BDD. He said the EDC has created three subcommittees — community development, business development and economic development — to move items forward and recommended the council adopt scoring criteria before marketing incentives.

Michael, the city planning and zoning official who spoke during the meeting, confirmed that planning staff will support the code changes and public‑notice work needed to finalize BDD parameters. McDaniel asked the public to contact Michael or him for survey results or follow up.

Council members asked few substantive questions; McDaniel closed by saying the next steps are finalizing the action plan, continuing the BDD rollout and launching marketing efforts once the city has the application and scoring framework. No formal vote was required or taken on the presentation.