PORT ANGELES — The Port Angeles Chamber of Commerce will host a downtown visioning workshop to help shape the future of the central business district on Monday.
The three-hour session will begin at 3 p.m. at Vern Burton Community Center, 308 E. Fourth St.
To register for the Elevate PA 2026 workshop, click on the chamber’s website, www.portangeles.org.
“If they come to the workshop, they should expect to do some work,” Chamber Executive Director Marc Abshire said in a recent interview.
“It’s not a presentation. It’s asking them to get involved and participate in envisioning a future for the downtown business district.”
The chamber is in the early stages of developing a five-year action plan for the downtown district called Elevate PA 2026.
A 14-question kickoff survey for Elevate PA 2026 is available on the chamber’s website.
Workshop attendees will be asked to consider different scenarios and to “think creatively about what’s possible” for the downtown, Abshire said.
“We’re hoping that we get a lot of energy from people who have some great ideas and really care about the future of the downtown,” he said.
Another Elevate PA workshop is planned for July 27.
The two chamber-led workshops will help shape a “strategic action plan” that will be vetted by downtown stakeholders and other community members this fall, Abshire said.
“We have specifically invited the downtown business and property owners (to the workshops),” Abshire said.
“We’ve been communicating with them on this project really from the beginning.”
“We hope to get quite a few of them to participate in the workshop, but we are also opening it up,” he added.
“We do want city residents to provide input as well.”
Separate events
The chamber’s Monday workshop is separate from a city of Port Angeles-led virtual open house on municipal code updates that is planned on Tuesday. That community forum will be from 5:30 p.m. to 7 p.m. Tuesday on Zoom.
To participate in the city workshop, click on https://zoom.us/j/99400688775.
Topics for the city’s open house will include business licensing, code enforcement, traffic and parking, short-term rentals and animals, according to a city announcement.
“These updates are separate from the zoning and development code updates that are already underway, so please join us even if you attended our prior open house in June,” the city announcement said.
The municipal code updates will impact the entire city, not just the downtown.
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Reporter Rob Ollikainen can be reached at rollikainen@peninsuladailynews.com.
Terry Ward, publisher of the Peninsula Daily News, Sequim Gazette and Forks Forum, serves on the Port Angeles Chamber of Commerce board of directors.
