Participant Bruce Weber
Soliciting input from the public on ways to revitalize downtown Harrisburg, the PA Downtown Center held its first workshop this afternoon at John Harris High School.
Alongside city and state officials, the center has been leading an effort to revitalize the capital city’s struggling downtown. The center, retained by the Harrisburg Regional Chamber & CREDC for the project, began the effort with a downtown perception survey distributed last winter.
Following the surveys from 4,000 responses, the center’s next step is engaging with the public directly through a series of workshops that will take place tonight through next week.
Around 20 attendees gathered for Thursday afternoon’s workshop, themed around quality of life in Harrisburg.
“This really is a defining moment,” said Julie Fitzpatrick, executive director of the Harrisburg-based center, introducing the workshop. “In the 21 years that I’ve been in this community, I feel like the stars have not aligned ever before, like they are aligning right now.”
Workshop attendees were broken into smaller groups to share with each other their perceptions of downtown’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. Then, they nominated a group representative to summarize their conversation for the whole room.
For instance, one group said downtown Harrisburg’s main strengths include its historic architecture, small businesses and proximity to Riverfront Park.
“It’s like beachfront property, except it’s the Susquehanna River,” said one participant, Tom, with the YMCA.
Among weaknesses brought up were the prohibitively high cost of parking, public safety issues and a lack of grocery and pharmacy stores downtown.
Participant Bruce Weber noted that the city’s strengths and weaknesses sometimes overlap. For instance, the city’s historic properties could be a weakness because they require redevelopment, which can be costly and time consuming.
Fitzpatrick said that what determines whether something marks one or the other is how the issue is framed. She will host another workshop to gather more public input tonight from 6 to 8 p.m. at Harrisburg High School—John Harris Campus.
Next week, the center will host two “public spaces” workshops and two “economic vitality” workshops. They will be centered around gathering spaces downtown and how Harrisburg can better support businesses, respectively.
Ryan Unger, president and CEO of the Chamber & CREDC, told TheBurg that the revitalization team is hoping to see around 500 total public workshop participants based on the number of survey responses received. He added the team expects attendance during daytime workshops, like Thursday’s, to be more lightly attended than evening sessions.
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