Business leaders take center stage in business retention campaign
February 1, 2022
Baltimore’s Central Business District has been losing businesses to surrounding neighborhoods. But the pandemic hastened downtown’s troubles. To fight the flight, the Downtown Partnership of Baltimore launched a promotional campaign aimed at retaining current employers and attracting new ones. The effort aims to “protect the core,” says Downtown Partnership President Shelonda Stokes. The Double Down…To read more — login/subscribe
With several portable toilets on the verge of being removed from service, the City of Columbus, OH, came through with $51,000 in funding to maintain the toilets and keep them open. That temporary reprieve will be followed by a more permanent solution, as Columbus has earmarked funds to install several free-standing bathrooms downtown. Early in…
Hartford, CT (est. pop. 122,591), faces a familiar problem: There just isn’t enough downtown housing to meet demand. While many downtowns are seeing conversions of under-used offices into housing, Hartford’s latest projects are a bit different. In one example, a struggling hotel will convert guest rooms to apartments. In another project, former student housing is…
The city of Trenton, NJ (est. pop. 83,211), and New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy are launching what they call the first large-scale urban transit system in America to be based entirely on self-driving shuttles. The Trenton MOVES project calls for deploying 100 autonomous vehicles throughout the city. Each driverless car will carry four to eight…
Remodeled bridge reconnects downtown neighborhoods For decades, the Main Street Bridge separated the core of downtown New Britain, CT, from the Little Poland neighborhood. The overpass was poorly lit, with narrow sidewalks, and the roar of traffic from below. All that changed in 2019, when the bridge was renovated and re-named the Beehive Bridge. The…
Long before anyone had heard of COVID-19, Middlebury, VT (est. pop. 6,966), faced an existential threat of a different type. An infrastructure project was set to tear up roads and disrupt the downtown for six years. Back in 2015, the Vermont Agency of Transportation embarked on the Bridge & Rail Project, a public works investment…
For years, Miami Beach, FL (est. pop. 88,885), routinely approved sidewalk dining permits for any Lincoln Road restaurant that asked for one. No longer. Even as the coronavirus pandemic has compelled many downtowns to ease rules around outdoor dining, Miami Beach has begun to crack down on sidewalk permits issued along the beachfront city’s popular…
In Redding, CA (est. pop. 92,958), a new venture has brought together 18 small shops in one location. Called Gather Downtown, it’s not quite a business incubator, not quite an antiques mart or a food hall. Instead, it’s a middle ground, an initiative that both fills vacant space and nurtures entrepreneurs. “We wanted to put…