Master Plan Organizers: Now We Need to Take Action

The next steps after unveiling the city's Master Plan is to give the document teeth and ensure city officials and citizens alike take action to follow through with what's in the plan.

The spearheaded the plan, which . That's when residents and city stakeholders met for the first time to brainstorm improvements to the city.

Two similar meetings followed — in which participants homed in on specific areas of concern, and , when participants saw their ideas start to take shape through vibrant mock-ups. Throughout the process, participants were guided by designers from the Cleveland Urban Design Collaborative (CUDC).

Bill Strohmenger, chairman of the Master Plan steering committee, addressed a room full of people last week who showed up at 's Barrette Business and Community Center for .

"This is not the city's plan. This is not the chamber's plan. This is our plan," Strohmenger said Wednesday night.

"This plan is only successful if we all join arms. Let it be known it's not going to happen through the city alone. It's got to come from a private-public partnership. It's got to come from people like you."

Strohmenger said he'll work with the mayor and city council to make sure the city moves forward with the plan, which is detailed in an 87-page document. Included in the document are ways to ensure implementation of the plan (see those pages attached to this update).

"I think it's important to keep it alive, keep it growing, that we keep adding to it and keep publishing it," Strohmenger said.

MASTER PLAN HIGHLIGHTS

• Reinforce downtown and make it clear that downtown is the hub of activity
• Give the city an identity and phase out the tagline "the Dogwood City"
• Add parking immediately off the front of the Hoover building
• Build up retail in the city and add on-street parking so shoppers can enter stores through the front rather than the back, where parking is now
• Amphitheatre at Bitzer Park, which Strohmenger said is already being looked into by a local civic group
• Gourmet grocery store near downtown
• Shared parking
• Bike lanes on major thoroughfares
• Make additions and improvements to the city, but make sure to retain the city's quaintness
• Look at development sites, such as Applegrove/Stratavon, the Charlotte building, Waterside Center and

You can find the city's full Master Plan by visiting ncantonmasterplan.org.