What downtown Rochester lacks, apparently, is sensuality. And toilet paper.
The city’s Department of Planning and Zoning held a public meeting last week to get residents’ ideas for the future of downtown.
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 week’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.
Downtown Rochester NY | City of Rochester NY | Downtown planning | Downtown Rochester master plan
This article appears in Jan 23-29, 2013.
Move Rochester’s downtown to Charlotte.
After years of speaking out on my hometown’s woes ( ie. saving midtown for a international food venue with a Super Target w/ grocery anchoring one end, the bank on East ave side becoming a theater and the tower with condos and Sibleys with residential lofts at opposite ends) … (BTW cheers to Tops for potentially stepping up – maybe Tops should expand products beyond food like Fred Meyers )
Here is another thought, instead of tearing up mainstreet and undoing what the last main street plan created, why not make north to south streets greener with medians, trees and landscaping. This allows Main street to be good for traffic flow and bus routes while encouraging foot traffic to secondary arteries. Especially, since these arteries actually lead to destinations from Main street. ie. High falls, Rundel, National museum of Play ( Strong Museum ), Corn hill, MCC ( once it moves to Kodak), the train station, Water street, etc. Another big suggestion is subsidised parking with validation, get people coming into town, parking and then purchasing to get free or very cheap parking. The city is “cold” because outside of the east end it is not drawing PEOPLE…. ok another thought, express bus services from inner loop to Charlotte, RIT, and UofR.
Since moving here 12 years ago – I realize that I rarely visit Rochester itself ( yes, I live in the suburbs) in the winter. The city needs something “Green” – literally. Other city have inside areas that have indoor gardens – large – that folks can go to during the whole late fall thru winter times – that literally refresh that soul. Yes, i know that lamberton conservatroy is there – but realtively speaking – it’s quite small and no one is really encouraged to just visit and sit a while to refresh – aisles are cramped for room. surely – the city planners must realize that a HUGE number of people inside and outside the city seek to escape Rochester, especially from january onwards – people crave seeing something green. I know I wouldn’t long to escape if only I had somewhere to go where I could walk and/or sit for a couple hours or more to get my “green ” fix. I never had this feeling of lack in the other cityies I lived in ( and I’ve lived in more northern, colder/snowier cities) – because they had such areas. and I’m not talking about the little fountain areas that some malls have with a few potted plants around them. Try thinking outside the box. Ask what you can do differently.
Today(24 Jan.)after listening to an interview with Joseph Minicozzi on WXXI Radio, a recent speaker in Rochester at the RRCDC event,it seems pretty obvious that we are trapped in a pretty pathetic situation with little clue of “best practices” in urban planning and development,citizen participation or leadership . It was embarrasing to listen to our local RDDC representative on the radio program. Rochester is still attempting to learn how to move forward with zoning and development guidelines that support private investment, create walkable neighborhoods, avoid mistakes like parking garage dead zones and plan for the cconvenience of urban living. Will it take another 50 years to achieve these goals?
We’ve had master plans, strategic plans, long range plans, parking plans, retail plans, Midtown plans ad nauseum for 30 years. There is no retail because there are no people. There are no people because for decades the wizards of DOT and City Hall have made downtown hopelessly confusing to navigate by car, scary unsafe (dark, unpatrolled) to walk, and inconvenient to park (robometers may work in nyc where people have no choice, but suburban parking is free so why put up with the hassle??).
Instead of yet another plan that will sit on the shelf and collect dust, why not make downtown attractive to the people you want to attract? That would be suburbanites who want safety, lights at night, streets that are not one-way in the wrong way you want to go, and free parking. Problem solved.