Forest City Development will take its plan for downtown revitalization to the Fresno City Council tomorrow. The company shared some of its vision with The Bee's editorial board last week, and we published an editorial on the issue yesterday.
Forest City has a deal with the city to develop the area south of the downtown stadium, and the company plans a mix of housing and small retail as the first of three phases. The proposal represents a shift in thinking for Forest City, which originally sought to lure a big-box retailer -- Bass Pro was the subject of endless chatter -- but had little success. In the end, Forest City decided to reverse the course and build housing first, hoping to spur the demand for retail and other commercial services once there's a real population living downtown.
That seems to be a wiser course. Downtown is crowded during the work day, but nearly deserted at night. Creating a lively and vibrant downtown requires people who live there, not just daytime workers and occasional visitors.
My lease is up August 2008. Will they have any apartments ready by then? ^^
Let see how this turns out. Forest City has been yapping for about 5 years now and hasnt produce crap. So lets sit back and see. I hope they finally start doing something.
Most thriving downtowns have a very small percentage of downtown residents for their customer base. Downtowns need to be exciting enough that they can draw people from a much wider area. Downtown residents are a part of making revitalization work (an important part) but they are not the biggest part.