PORT ANGELES — The mood of the crowd was positive at the city’s first public meeting Tuesday evening about an architects’ report on how Port Angeles can be redesigned to improve transportation and economic development.
The purpose of the meeting, attended by about 40 people, was to get public input on which of the 135 recommendations from the American Institute of Architects report, which was issued in August, should be implemented as the city prepares its 2010 budget, said City Manager Kent Myers.
The 87-page report was developed by a six-member AIA design team that spent about three days in Port Angeles in March.
They came as part of a grant the organization awarded the city, with a $5,000 match, one year ago.
Its focus was downtown and the “International Corridor,” which includes First and Front streets east of downtown.
Those in attendance at the Tuesday meeting were given a form listing 15 categories, such as downtown housing and economic development, with each having between three and seven projects proposed by the six-member AIA team.
They were asked to mark each idea as having, in their opinion, a high, medium or low priority.
The form will be available on the city’s Web site, www.cityofpa.us, until noon Friday, said Nathan West, city Community and Economic Development Director.
Lose momentum?
While the question period at the meeting included more expressions of support than questions, the one concern expressed was that the city may lose momentum in implementing the report’s recommendations.
City staff members present said that is not going to be the case.
“We’re taking this project out of City Hall,” Myers said. “We are taking it to the streets so to speak.”
He said staff members will make themselves available to any organization that wants a presentation on the report and how the city can put its recommendations into effect.
“We’re actually reviewing these items, prioritizing them for implementation, and moving them forward to council to ensure that they are not just part of a plan on the shelf,” West said.
Projects started, planned
In order to drive that point home, staff presented what they have started since the team’s draft recommendations were available in March and what they have planned for next year.
To date, the city has created a facade improvement program to improve the look of buildings in core commercial areas, began attracting the Port Angeles Farmers Market back downtown, and added new items to its comprehensive and capital facilities plans to guide align development with the AIA team’s recommendations.
In its comprehensive plan, which helps direct future growth and development, the city has added investigating how it could turn First and Front streets into two-way roads and creating a plans for improving way-finding signs to the plan’s goals.
To the capital facilities plan, which mostly includes large infrastructure projects that the city plans to accomplish, it has added creating new way-finding signs, improving pedestrian access to the corridor, conducting a building height study, creating a new entryway monument at the east-end of town, and conducting a downtown parking study.
Each of those items were based on recommendations from the AIA report.
In 2010, the city plans to begin creating a waterfront promenade, amend its parking codes, start the way-finding sign program, and take a close look at building heights.
How to fund projects?
But how will the city be able to fund all of this?
It can’t do it on its own, Myers told the crowd.
“It’s going to require partnerships of organizations, including the county across the street,” he said.
“The city doesn’t have the time, staff or resources to do this on their own . . . we are going to need a lot of help from a lot of people.”
Myers said the volunteer-driven effort to spruce-up downtown, which was inspired by the AIA team’s visit, is an example of how the public can help the city build on the report.
But the city also is seeking grant funding, particularly with the promenade and with routing truck traffic away from downtown, which was another recommendation.
It will find out in February if it will be awarded a large federal Department of Transportation grant, which includes $4.5 million for the promenade, $6 million for an eastbound on-ramp at U.S. Highway 101 and the Tumwater Truck Route, $4.2 to rebuild the Lauridsen Boulevard bridge near Race Street to better accommodate large trucks, among other projects.
Myers has said that the promenade, which the city has planned since 1999, won’t be built next year without that grant.
“There are some changes in the works,” West said, referring to the grant application and those projects.
“If we’re not successful, we will go for another one until we get it.”
The AIA report can be viewed at the city’s Web site.
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Reporter Tom Callis can be reached at 360-417-3532 or at tom.callis@peninsuladailynews.com.
