[B]URLINGTON — The city has worked for decades to make the Church Street Marketplace, the heart of the downtown, a regional destination. Now, leaders are aiming to improve the surrounding streets and give a boost to the rest of the downtown.
The city is considering creating a new downtown improvement district which would be managed by a private sector-led nonprofit.
Commercial property owners would pay a fee which would go toward extra services provided by the nonprofit and its staff, which would aim to improve economic vitality, parking management, marketing downtown and public safety and cleanliness.
The city council’s Board of Finance discussed the downtown improvement district at its meeting Monday night. Both the city council and voters will need to approve the founding of the district.
The current downtown improvement district was established for commercial property owners in the downtown area to provide funding for two hours of free parking in the city’s three municipal parking garages.
The new district would combine the current DID and the area overseen by the city-operated marketplace department. The Marketplace Commission, whose members are appointed by the City Council and set policy, would be replaced by a new board.
The marketplace department provides enhanced security, cleaning and marketing services to businesses, funded primarily by a fee paid by the street’s commercial property owners.
Businesses on the streets adjacent to Church Street wanted some of the same benefits the Church Street Marketplace receives, said Ron Redmond, executive director of the city’s marketplace department.
“Businesses on the side streets said, ‘We want to buy in,’” Redmond said. “People started coming to us saying, ‘What do we have to pay, how do we get involved?”
The nonprofit would use its funding to hire safety and hospitality ambassadors to both greet members of the public and act as a second set of eyes for law enforcement. The nonprofit would also do more downtown cleaning and beautification, marketing and business development.
Another focus of the nonprofit would be increasing awareness of parking options and establishing alternative transportation modes between the waterfront and downtown.
Redmond said it is too early to determine exactly how the new district would affect current fees, and through representation on the board of the nonprofit, commercial property owners would have a role in determining how fees are assessed.
The presentation prepared by the city attorney’s office suggested charging fees proportional to the benefits received by the businesses. For example, businesses on Church Street would pay the most and receive the most, while businesses closer to the Waterfront would pay less for less additional services.
Councilor Adam Roof, who is working on the issue, said that the experience on Church Street compared to the rest of the downtown is “wildly inconsistent.”
“You step off Church Street, and the experience is completely different,” he said. “People will walk up Church Street, take a left or a right on a side street, and what do they do? Turn right around.”
During the meeting, Councilor Kurt Wright said that at a meeting last Thursday, some business owners in the area expressed concerns about the additional fee.
“They didn’t feel like it was clear enough what the benefits are going to be,” he said.
Councilor Sharon Bushor said that the city had a lot of work to do to explain the benefits of the new district to the community.
“I feel the property owners and the business owners, working with the city, want to enhance it for their benefit and for ours,” she said. “I didn’t feel like the public really understood what this all was about on Thursday night.”
The board discussed adding an optional fee for residential properties or requiring assessments for residential properties valued at over $300,000, but decided against including charging residential property owners.
After discussion, the Board of Finance decided the district should follow approximately the same boundaries as the current district, which includes the pedestrian marketplace and stretches down to the Waterfront.
The nonprofit would be overseen by a board, consisting of property owners, business owners and representatives of the city. The makeup of the board, like many details of the plan, is still under consideration.
The Board of Finance also discussed if a new nonprofit was necessary, compared to staying with the current city department model.
“If the city council or the mayor retains the authority about the assessment, how much we assess, and the budget, how the money is spent, then why do you need a separate nonprofit?” Councilor Jane Knodell said.
Mayor Miro Weinberger said he supports the nonprofit model, which has been utilized in other cities.
“I think this non-profit model has shown itself to have stood the test of time around the country for decades,” he said.
Gary Ferguson is the executive director of the Downtown Ithaca Alliance in Ithaca, N.Y., a nonprofit which manges that city’s downtown improvement district. He said the formation of that district in 1997 helped revitalize the city’s downtown, which has since almost doubled in size.
“That additional assessment would go to the business improvement district to help that district improve itself,” Ferguson said in an interview. “The beauty of a business improvement district is they get to decide what those needs are.”
In Ithaca, the downtown area had been losing business to a mall on the outskirts of town. The downtown improvement district was founded with the goals of improving business development and retention and improving marketing of the city’s downtown.
Today, the Downtown Ithaca Alliance continues to do that business development and marketing work but also sponsors special events, ambassador programs and transportation initiatives.
“It’s certainly helped evolve downtown into something we think is sustainable and is something that is able to compete in the 21st century,” Ferguson said.
