Reigert Square is a key shopping area the city’s Town Center, where the 27 curb cuts on Pleasant Avenue from Nilles Road to Patterson Boulevard will be reduced. Timmer said that project “will be huge from a redevelopment standpoint and a safety standpoint.”
The city will use some of the city’s ARPA funds to help finance that project.
“We’re hoping to make some big progress on that one,” Timmer said.
As with the Town Center revitalization efforts, that also includes attracting people to Village Green Park. The city launched a Designated Outdoor Refreshment Area, or DORA, in the Village Green area in hopes to attract people outside of planned events.
“We do a good job of getting people to the Village Green when we program a concert or a movie in the park, so we’re figuring out a way to get similar types of folks down here when it’s not a program event,” said Timmer. “We’re looking at ways to enhance the area and add things to get people to come down on a Friday night and hang out there and stay.”
This year will also see more work on the city’s Sustainability Plan efforts.
“We’ll be looking at it from two angles, city operations and the city as a whole, from a sustainability perspective,” the city manager said. “That will be a huge undertaking in 2023 and one we think will add tremendous value to not only how the city operates but how we attract future generations to come to the city.”
The plan’s development came at the urging of Vice Mayor Tim Meyers and Council member Gwen Brill in a co-authored letter asking the city to consider sustainable options, from reducing the city’s carbon footprint to community engagement and education.
“If you look at the core of sustainability, it’s building efficiency into your general processes that you have that makes sense for the environment, that makes sense for the community, it makes sense for the business owners,” Meyer said at a September council-manager briefing session. “This is the right thing to do for this city.”
City leaders in 2023 will also dust off the old Marsh Lake strategic plan and revamp the plan as Timmer said it’s “a resource we now have ownership of and it has vast potential.” The city could establish a timeline in 2023 on what needs to be done for that project.
As they focus on Marsh Lake, the city will continue it’s redevelopment of Harbin Park, where the first phase of a multi-phase, multi-year project wrapped up in 2022 with the redesign of the overlook with a new 100-person pavilion and new restroom facilities. The next phase will feature a new playground area and a splash pad.
Planning for the third phase will begin in 2023, but Timmer said they will also look to “speed some of that up” to get more done in 2023 than initially planned as Harbin Park has looked more like a construction zone in some areas in the past year-to-18 months.
“I think the playground will do a tremendous amount to improve the usability of the park,” Timmer said.
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