Akron will be holding the last of three meetings tomorrow night on what it will take to rejuvenate downtown and how to further the effort. WKSU’s M.L. Schultze has this preview.
The meeting is expected to flesh out overall development principles Akron’s been talking about for months with concrete plans to fill in the residential and retail gaps downtown.
The city and Downtown Akron Partnership have been working with the urban design firm MKSK to come up with the Downtown Akron Vision and Redevelopment Plan. MKSK’s Andrew Overbeck says the downtown strategy can’t rest on legacy employers alone.
“The corporate institutions are great. They’re the sort of bedrock of the community. But I think the other thing that the mayor’s working on, the city’s working on right now is innovation.
"How do we grow companies, how do we create new companies, what is the next big company and how can that start here? And if we makes moves in that way so that companies start here, then they have a little more attachment to this place.”
The effort is focused on how to incorporate downtown housing with green space and the city core’s institutions, such as the Akron Art Museum and Civic Theatre.
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