The Downtown Development Authority hopes to drive more people downtown with a proposed outdoor event space, but it comes with the trade off of less parking.
As the DDA went through the process of developing a new downtown plan and speaking with business owners, it became clear that more events in the downtown area would be beneficial to businesses, DDA Executive Director Brandon Stam said. The downside was that in order to hold events, it needed to shut down Main Street, which is not always popular with the business community.
âThe plaza (proposal) was something that kind of came in thinking about the future of downtown,â Stam said. âThe challenge we have with events is people want to see more events downtown, but the merchants on Main Street donât necessarily want to see Main Street shut down more.â