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City
of Meadville
Business District Action Plan Update
2007
An
Element of the Central Crawford Region
Multi-Municipal Comprehensive Plan
This project was funded, in part, by a grant from the
Pennsylvania Department of
Community and
Economic Development, Land Use Planning Technical
Assistance Program.
Elmer Nelson, Chairman
Lyle Mook
Kenneth Montag
Steven Utz
Dave Thomas
Brad Wilson
Jim Budney
Marge Hall (Former Member)
City Planning Director
Rick
Williams
Andy Walker
Conceptual Illustrations and Photographs
by Steven Utz
Project Planners
GCCA
Rick
Grossman, Text
Tom Graney, Jr., Mapping
Barb Schiek, Layout
Special Assistance by
David
Hill, AIA
Olsen/Hill Design
Table of Contents
Page Number
Project History
and Introduction 1
Part 1 – The
Market Area
Demographics 1
Population Change 2
Key Facts 3
Demographics and
Regional Retail Performance 3
Key Facts 5
Regional Retail Economics 5
Key Facts 8
Other Socio-Economics Issues 8
Previous and Related Planning Initiatives 8
Downtown Development Priorities from the County
Economic Roadmap 11
Public Input – Surveys of the Community 11
Surveys 11
Merchant Survey 12
High Priority Merchant Suggestions 12
Moderate Priority Merchant Suggestions 12
Low Priority Merchant Suggestions 13
Shopper Survey 13
Key Facts 15
Physical
Development Issues: Land Use, Zoning Streets and Building Utilization 16
Physical Development Issues 16
Land Use and Zoning 16
Streets and Landscape 19
Building Utilization/Building
Façade/Commercial Features 19
Part 2 –
Meadville Business District Strategy and Recommendations 24
Overall Goals 24
Urban Design
Action Plan 25
Gateways 26
Public Space 28
Mill Run 30
Retail Core 30
Streetscapes 31
Parking 33
Key Initial Urban Design Actions 33
Business and
Market Development Action Plan 34
Demographics 34
Zoning and Land Regulations 35
Elm Street Program 37
Five-Year
Business District Action Plan Summary 37
Year One 37
Year Two 38
Year Three 38
Year Four 39
Year Five 39
Tables
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Population of
Age Groups, 1990 3
Comparative MHI: Selected Communities 4
Detailed Household Income: City of
1999 Household Income by Percentage: Central Crawford
Region 5
Retail Sales in
Retail Sales by Type: City of
Prepared Food and Beverage Sales,
1993 Comprehensive Plan Recommendations – 2006 Status
and Results 9
1997 BDAP Goals – 2006 Results/Status 10
1997 Buildings/Projects – 2006 Status/Results 10
Merchants Survey Response to Public Services in Downtown
Actions Business Owners Would Support 13
Shoppers’ Survey Responses 14
Typical Developer’s RFP Incentives and
Requirements 30
Maps
City of Meadville
Business District Action Plan Project Area Follows
Page 9
City of
City of
City of
Space Priorities – Downtown Priorities Follows
Page 26
City of
City of Meadville Business District Action
Plan Potential Main Street
Glossary of Terms
BID – Business Improvement District:
A special sub-municipal taxing district where additional property taxes are only spent within the district.
BDAP: Common acronym for Business
District Action Plan.
CONTEXT SENSITIVE DESIGN: A
movement by traffic engineers to make street systems fit better into their surroundings.
CORE COMMUNITY: A planning term
for older cities and boroughs that traditionally served as business and government centers.
ELM STREET PROGRAM: A
Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development Program to revitalize residential areas adjacent to
downtowns in core communities.
HOMETOWN STREETS: A Pennsylvania grant program that
uses federal transportation funds to improve
sidewalks, streetlights, street furniture public spaces, and pedestrian safety
in Pennsylvania’s older downtown areas.
LERTA: Acronym for
Local Economic Revitalization Tax Assistance, a
RFP: A Request for Proposals; in
the BDAP, this means a request from developers to offer a package to purchase and develop public
property, or private property in partnership with the city and present owner.
TIF: Acronym for Tax
Incremental Financing, which allows a municipality to finance future improvements
based upon a capture area of development
that benefits from new infrastructure. Businesses within a TIF district know
that a portion of their real estate taxes directly benefit them.
TND: Traditional Neighborhood
Development, both a movement to build better neighborhoods based upon historic examples, and a
legal form of unified development allowed by the Pennsylvania Municipalities Planning Code.
TRID: An acronym for the Transit Revitalization
Investment District; a state act that allows transit facilities to be a partner
in a TIF District.
Meadville
Business District Action Plan Update
Project History and Introduction: This document represents an update to the City of
Meadville Business District Action Plan (BDAP).
The purpose of the BDAP is to serve as a relatively brief, action-oriented
planning document.
As the title
indicates, this is actually an update of an existing Business District Action
Plan. That plan was prepared
and adopted in 1997. This Plan attempts to build upon that foundation, rather
than repeating that effort. The main
difference in approach was a greater emphasis on urban design issues.
The decision to
update the Business District Action Plan coincided with a multi-municipal
comprehensive plan
update that involved the City of
The first part of the BDAP update looks
at four issues:
·
Market Area
Demographics
·
Regional Retail
Economics
·
Other
Socio-Economic Issues
·
Physical
Development Issues
This section
comprises a snapshot of existing conditions at the time of this update. The
data collected was
used to develop the actual Action Plan recommendations, which comprises Part 2
of this document. The Action Plan
contains lists of possible activities, and an explanation of the specific
public policies and actions for continuing the revitalization of the heart of
Part 1 -- The
Market Area Demographics
The most basic measurement of retail
capacity is the population of the Study Area. The number of people who comprise
the market are important in calculating possible retail market size, and
whether the market is growing or declining. Much of the following data was
collected for the multi-municipal comprehensive plan background report.
Population Change: For the study communities of Conneaut Lake Borough, Meadville City, and Sadsbury and Vernon Townships, the population has
been in a state of flux ever since 1960. In that year,
Twenty years later,
the booming manufacturing economy of northwestern
However, the seeds
of the Region’s decline were already planted by 1980. The beginning of the
national recession of the early 1980s could be seen in western
|
Population
of Crawford Central Region, |
|||||||||
|
|
1960 |
1970 |
Percent Change |
1980 |
Percent Change |
1990 |
Percent Change |
2000 |
Percent Change |
|
|
700 |
745 |
6.0 |
767 |
3.0 |
699 |
8.9 |
708 |
1.3 |
|
|
16,671 |
16,573 |
-0.6 |
15,544 |
-6.2 |
14,318 |
-7.9 |
13,685 |
-4.4 |
|
|
1,601 |
2,221 |
38.7 |
2,702 |
21.7 |
2,575 |
-4.7 |
2,941 |
12.4 |
|
|
4,589 |
5,264 |
14.7 |
6,348 |
20.6 |
5,605 |
-11.7 |
5,499 |
-1.9 |
|
Regional Totals |
23,561 |
24,803 |
5.3 |
25,361 |
2.2 |
23,197 |
-8.5 |
22,833 |
-1.6 |
|
|
77,956 |
81,342 |
4.3 |
88,869 |
9.25 |
86,169 |
-3.0 |
||