Mayor: Revive main street program to aid downtown
The city of Altoona should try again to develop a main street program for downtown, Mayor Matt Pacifico told the Greater Altoona Economic Development Corp. on Monday.
It could do so with the help of its ongoing participation in the state’s Act 47 distressed municipalities program and by taking advantage of the state’s Keystone Communities program, Pacifico said.
But first, the city would need to commit to finding an existing city employee — or maybe an employee of a nonprofit organization — who could devote 60 percent of his or her time to promote downtown events and activities, Pacifico said.
The city would need to pay for that main street work, because there is no longer money in the Keystone Communities program for main street activities per se, he said.
But if the city started the program, it would be eligible for a variety of Keystone Communities grants that could benefit downtown, Pacifico said.
And by making the main street program an initiative in its Act 47 recovery plan, it would get priority for those grants, he said.
Pacifico said he’s not sure whether there is an employee whose work schedule would be amenable to a 60-percent diversion to downtown work.
“I don’t know who that person could be,” he said. “(And) we would have to come up with how it would be paid.”
Officials from the Pennsylvania Downtown Center are coming to town in a couple of weeks, and they may help sort out the issues, he said.
The Keystone Communities program offers facade, development, innovation, public improvement, planning, implementation and accessible housing grants, according to Pacifico.
Downtown has been growing recently and it’s a “good time to entertain the idea of having someone who could devote the better part of their day” to accelerating that growth, he said.
GAEDC, the Downtown Altoona Business Community and even the Mirror have been hosting downtown events recently, “but they’re all doing it on the side,” Pacifico said.
A main street manager could “do it 365,” he said.
If the city starts a program, it should be administered by an existing group, like GAEDC or DABC, some GAEDC members suggested.
“The last thing we want to do is create another organization,” said GAEDC CEO Patrick Miller.
Restarting a main street program is a great idea, said GAEDC and DABC member Judy Coutts, an architect.
But it would be best if the initiative could “harness the existing energy,” Coutts said.
Then it could actually unify the existing groups, rather than add yet another, she said.
Altoona last had a main street program when the city used $60,000 a year in Community Development Block Grant money to fund the work of “center city coordinator” Bob Scholl, who retired in 2011, after several years on the job.
Mirror Staff Writer William Kibler is at 949-7038.
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