Designing downtown

What
downtown Rochester lacks, apparently, is sensuality. And
toilet paper.

The city’s
Department of Planning and Zoning held a public meeting last night to get
residents’ ideas for the future of downtown. The meeting was well attended, and
a variety of ideas were put forth — some more practical than others.

The City of
Rochester expects to have a new downtown master plan — essentially a document
to guide development — in place by the end of the year. The last plan was
approved in 2003, and downtown has changed a lot since then, said Marcia Barry,
director of planning and zoning.

At last
night’s meeting, one speaker said that Main Street is a “cold place” that lacks
sensuality: it’s all concrete and sharp corners, he said. He advocated widening
the street and establishing a landscaped center corridor with benches.

“It would
make it a much more humane, emotionally attractive place,” he said.

A few
residents spoke of downtown having islands of activity with no glue to connect
them — an observation that’s come up before in discussions of downtown
planning. Barry said an important step will be to get people walking. More feet
on the street would encourage development in the corridors between those
islands, she said.

One young speaker
said that downtown lacks “normal people things.”

“It’s not
easy to go out and just get a roll of toilet paper,” he said. “You can’t walk
to the pharmacy. There’s a lot of good stuff, but we’re missing a lot.”

Longstanding
obstacles to the revitalization of downtown also came up, such as the
perception that downtown is unsafe. Everyone agreed that the perception is
unfair, but no one seemed to have ideas for changing it.

An open
house on the downtown master plan will be held from 5:30 p.m. to 7 p.m. on
Wednesday, January 23, at City Hall, 30 Church Street.

This article appears in Jan 16-22, 2013.