BEVERLY — The future of the downtown has become a matter for debate in the mayor's race. Now the public will get its chance to comment on the subject.
Beverly Main Streets will hold the first in a series of community meetings tomorrow on its Downtown 2020 plan, which lays out a variety of strategies to revitalize the downtown area. The meeting is scheduled for 7 to 8:30 p.m. at the First Baptist Church on Cabot Street.
"We want to make it a participatory process, so it's not just a bunch of people sitting in a room deciding what we think downtown Beverly should look like in 2020," Main Streets Co-President Miranda Gooding said. "We want the community involved in that process."
Beverly Main Streets, a nonprofit organization, unveiled Downtown 2020 last December. The 84-page plan considers ways to attract new retail stores and residential development to Cabot and Rantoul streets and take advantage of the city's history, two colleges and underused waterfront.
The report is based in part on a survey of almost 1,000 people and was prepared for Beverly Main Streets by Kennedy Smith, a former director of the national Main Streets program.
"Downtown Beverly has assets of which most communities would be envious," Smith wrote in her report. "... But downtown Beverly is also going through a significant economic transformation that has left the downtown without a clear commercial development direction."
Beverly Main Streets, which relies heavily on volunteers, has run events like ArtsFest and Beverly's New Year but has recently raised more money to become more involved in trying to revitalize the downtown. Local businesses have committed to fund the organization at $221,000 per year for three years as long as it continues to meet its goals, Gooding said.
So far this year, Main Streets has awarded $25,000 to five downtown businesses to improve their storefronts, recommended zoning changes passed by the City Council to encourage residential development downtown, created a guide to help new businesses coming to Beverly, and designed signs to direct people to the downtown and help them navigate once they get there.
Main Streets also established a new 30 & Main committee of younger community leaders. The group sponsored a mayoral debate earlier this month.
At that debate, Mayor Bill Scanlon said he plans to hire an economic development director to help improve the downtown. His challenger, City Council President Mike Cahill, said he wants to bring a car-sharing company like ZipCar to the downtown, as well as a bike-sharing program.
Earlier this year, the city spent $1.2 million to upgrade four city-owned parking lots off Cabot Street with new paving, lighting, landscaping, and pay-and-display meters.
Gooding said Main Streets is now looking at the possibility of financial incentives to attract businesses, the development of a possible master plan specifically for the downtown, and promoting the good businesses that are already there.
Tomorrow night's meeting is free and open to the public.
"It will be a give and take, to let people hear firsthand some of things we are working on as a group and also to get some feedback and hopefully enlist people's participation," Gooding said. "The idea is really to have as many people as possible directly involved."
Staff writer Paul Leighton can be reached at 978-338-2675 or by email at pleighton@salemnews.com.
If you go
What: Community meeting on Downtown 2020
When: Tomorrow, 7-8:30 p.m.
Where: First Baptist Church, 221 Cabot St., Beverly
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