The board reviewed the Active Ground Floor Study, which explores flexible alternatives to traditional retail in downtown mixed-use developments—such as small-scale manufacturing, healthcare, and childcare—to reduce vacancy rates and support living-wage jobs. Consultants discussed how comprehensive plan overlays can help developers integrate these non-traditional uses into new buildings based on market demands and infrastructure capacity. Additionally, officials provided updates on residential building pipelines, upcoming public infrastructure bids for the Heights district, and how municipal policies like impact fees affect future housing development.
Building_development
City Center Redevelopment Authority · Mar 19, 2026 · 13:51–14:04 · Watch on CVTV ↗
Keywords: zoning comprehensive plan building permits affordable housing infrastructure density
What was said
12:49 to at least get the bridge replacement happening. So I think that's, we agree with that. It's just the impacts of downtown are unclear. So with that, that's my update. I'll turn it back to you, President Fazio. Unless anybody has any questions. - Yeah, thank you, anyone? Any questions for Patrick? Okay, so with that we can move, oh, do we have any public testimony that was either present or signed up? - No, none received. - Okay, so we can move forward. And the next item is the active ground floor study. - Thank you. So this active ground floor study is one of our follow-up activities from the downtown redevelopment study.
13:46 This is really looking at kind of how we continue to, kind of in the context of looking at the comprehensive plan and kind of meeting all of the city's growth goals from a housing and jobs perspective. How do we continue to keep downtown an active environment pedestrian and street, how do we keep an active streetscape without having negative repercussions on continued growth and economic activity in downtown? So if we could, next two slides? Or yes, yeah. So kind of contextually, we understand that a lot of cities, both regionally and nationally, have over-prescribed retail specifically to try to activate streetscapes.
14:42 We see this in rather high vacancy rates and ground floor retail spaces in other cities. And just, it's no longer a market-driven environment, so I think we see that as a potential pitfall of just being overly reliant on retail. We also understand that consumer trends
Evidence (1 match)
direct keyword 13:51–14:04 zoning, comprehensive plan, building permits, affordable housing, infrastructure, density
is the active ground floor study. - Thank you. So this active ground floor study is one of our follow-up activities from the downtown redevelopment study. This is really looking at kind of how we continue to, kind of in the context of looking at the comprehensive plan and kind of meeting all of the city's growth goals from a housing and jobs perspective. How do we continue to keep downtown an active environment pedestrian and street, how do we keep an active streetscape without having negative r