Commercial Plan Now In Hands Of Task Force

DAYTON - Last Wednesday evening, community members gathered in the library's Delany building to see the final suggestions from an architect company as to what the city's Historic Commercial Avenue could look like in the next 10 to 20 years.

Dougherty Landscape Architects, from Eugene, Ore., was the company hired to redesign the street to enhance its connection to Main Street and link the county courthouse, Blue Mountain schoolhouse and all of the "jewels" in between.

"It was (David Dougherty's) job to link them and I think he did an excellent job," said Marcene Hendrickson, the chairwoman of the Dayton Development Task Force that is taking on the project.

Now that Dougherty and his team are done with their dreaming and sketching, it's up to the task force to look at all of the suggestions, decide on what projects to take on and find funding for them.

Some of the suggestions the task force will look at include additional parking, more connections to Main Street for pedestrians, public restrooms and landscaping.

But, none of this will happen overnight.

Hendrickson said it could take 10 to 20 years to revitalize the area as the task force would like.

Jennie Dickinson, also at the meeting Wednesday, said the task force will take these projects one step at a time.

"It is very difficult to get funding for projects without a plan, so this was step one," Dickinson said. "Now we will watch for funding opportunities for portions of the project, and also identify which portions are priorities and focus on those first."

When the task force was revitalizing Main Street, Hendrickson said the task forced raised all of the money through grants and donations from citizens. The playground recently installed on Commercial Avenue was paid for by a grant from Inland Northwest.

The task force does not yet have any actual costs of projects nailed down. Once they decide on the first project to be completed, they will ask architects and engineers to estimate the costs, Hendrickson said.

Mayor Craig George, who was also in attendance last Wednesday, said he is most excited that there is a plan for improvement, no matter how daunting it may be.

Rather than jumping headfi rst into larger projects at the beginning, George said there are smaller projects that can be done, such as putting new signage on different buildings. There are grants out there that could fund that, he said.

Hendrickson and George are both excited for the addition of more parking. Dougherty said if much of the parallel parking now in place can be made into diagonal parking, more people can park downtown during big events like local parades and festivals.

Dickinson is excited by the new visitors the revitalized area could bring to Commercial Avenue once revitalized. Also, locals may stay and shop in Dayton because there's more to do, a friendlier environment and easier walking around town.

"Besides making Dayton more attractive to visitors, I hoped this plan would contain elements that make it more attractive to our residents so that they will spend time downtown and hopefully spend money in our stores. I think the plan shows that," Dickinson said.