Plymouth discusses plans for downtown

Village Hall that are to be demolished in the future.

And there was another point the speaker had for the overall revitalization plan. But Councilwoman Moore believes it to be a “pipedream.” And that is to create an “investor group,” to purchase buildings, invest in their restoration, and then sell them. Even though she called it a pipe-dream, Moore says they “might be surprised,” and it is something she’d “like to explore” in the future.

Now its time to develop an action plan, of which there are several categories.

Action plan categories:

•

Clean up and demolition.

One of the biggest obstacles to this endeavor, the councilwoman said, is owners don’t know what to do with the “stuff” that has accumulated inside their buildings and/or cleanup is too large of an undertaking for an individual. For that reason, a village clean-up day (including helping owners find storage for their belongings) might prove helpful in allowing owners to lease or sell their properties to potential business-owners. The next action plan category is

restoration/renovation.

beautifying the landscape.

Then comes village create

Then the should which Moore finds “vitally important.” Next on the agenda would be

greenspace,

furthering community development.

And then the aforementioned

investor group, which

Moore doesn’t “see happening anytime soon.”

And finally, there is the game plan. This is where the village needs to make “finite progress” and demonstrate where they’d like to end up in the next two years. This should be done using a few small steps at a time. This would also include generating interest, assessing the downtown’s needs and that of each building, and funding renovation.

• Officials need also to look at exterior spaces including sidewalks, curbs, and streetlights.

• Then comes design-rendering, for which an architect would need to be consulted.

• Then there’s marketing

•

•

the village and understanding costs.

The next step is “the huge one,” said Susan Moore. And that is

teams

assigning

to undergo the work. Additionally, officials need to everything they accomplish within their two year plan.

document

Plymouth’s plan

Now for the committee’s working plan to enact downtown revitalization.

Their first, and most concrete area of business, is organizing an open house with some of the unused buildings downtown, in order to generate interest and business in said buildings.

They would need to get the owners on board and give them a tentative date–-april

29. The committee even discussed making it a fun downtown event, with food trucks and live music. Moore suggested giving people “options” for being involved, in order to encourage involvement at any level.

They’d like to have at least four or five buildings for the event. Some ideas included; the old laundromat, the old Dr. Office, the old bank, the jewelry store, and even the old bar. However, the latter one is unlikely as an engineer has said that the building is only five years behind the one beside it that collapsed–-three years ago.

Councilwoman Hannah Carter suggested setting up a booth of some sort for council at the event, in order to establish a much-needed “presence” in the village.

Some additional ideas that were tossed around during the meeting were:

• Creating a downtown business association

• Hanging up the former Royal Blue Market sign on the building that used to house the market (Corner of West Broadway and SR 61, across from former bank)

• Bringing a craft brewery or tapas bar (like the one that is coming to Shelby’s Ivory Bean coffee shop) to Plymouth (Moore admitted these might be “pipe dreams”)

• Painting a mural of a classic movie theater on the side of the former laundry mat, as that building used to house a theater

The committee will meet again on the 21 of this month.