From the Marblehead Reporter

What every resident should know about making area more beautiful, functional downtown

Rebuilding a downtown sounds scary, like having a hip replaced or setting the clock on your VCR. All I can say is thank god there are people who do this for a living. To a trained physician, a hip replacement is fairly routine. To you or me, it's a bloody miracle. Sometimes it's better not to know how it's done, just that it gets done. Other times, it is good to know how things work and how you can participate in the process.

The Uptown Business District (UBD) needs work. It has tremendous potential to be a great place to shop and meet people, but unfortunately years of unstructured development and growth have left its mark on the district, and we can do better.

The UBD is the shopping district along Atlantic Avenue roughly from Ace Hardware to Five Corners, along Essex Street to Talbot's, and Pleasant Street from Village Street to Talbot's. It also includes Washington Street from the Village Plaza to Five Corners and the Spring, Elm and School streets block behind the National Grand Bank.

Marblehead is not a drive-through community like Salem or Danvers. It's a destination. This makes it difficult for many businesses to succeed here, especially without resident patronage. Over the years, the ravages of a challenging economy coupled with a lack of organized interest in the area has lead to a decline. While we are all quick to point out the features and amenities of the Historic District, the Uptown Business District, the entrance to our downtown, is suffering.

Unlike hip replacements, rebuilding downtowns requires citizen participation, lots of it; the more participation you have, the better the end result. The reason the District looks and functions as poorly as it does today is largely due to the fact that too few people have been looking after it. We have no master plan, and finding good businesses and keeping them is a serious challenge for all of us.

Fortunately, there is a group of concerned citizens who have mobilized and are volunteering their time to making improvements to this area a reality. This group is called the Marblehead 20|20 Foundation.

The Foundation was started as a think tank to collect the many ways we, as Marbleheaders, can improve all aspects of our town. From youth and family friendly activities, to Devereux Beach improvements, economic and community development, we're looking at a wide variety of ways to make our town a better place to live and work.

Marblehead 20|20 has come up with a five-point plan for improving and rebuilding the Uptown Business District:

1. Identify the challenge

The Uptown Business District needs more identity and style. Improvement in this area would directly benefit the businesses and allow them to better provide you with the services you need. We want to attract people from our own community as well as surrounding areas and increase our economic base and our ability to bring in the shops, stores and services that are needed to better serve you.

It's unfortunate when we hear stories of visitors coming to Marblehead, driving down Atlantic Avenue only to turn around on Pleasant Street thinking they saw the town. What a different experience it would have been if the entrance to our commercial area were more inviting and appealing, with improved landscaping, interesting storefronts and places to comfortably sit while having a meal or cup of coffee and people watch.

2. Create a vision

Creating a vision is simply identifying what you want your town to look like and where a variety of activities and services should be placed. We at Marblehead 20|20 see a town with trees, brick sidewalks, better street lighting, small "pocket parks," more cohesive architectural design and a focused business district with hubs and urban generators.

A hub is a center that collects activities and defines an area of town. Five Corners is a hub. Four Corners at Howard's is a hub. Veterans Park is a hub. Each of these areas needs a focus or an urban generator.

Reopening the Warwick Theater would create a major urban generator. It would bring people back downtown and lead to other social activities, like going to restaurants, window shopping and, most importantly, random encounters with people. This is what makes communities vibrant and fun. People watching, bumping into somebody you haven't seen in awhile, just getting out of the house and interacting in a pleasant, safe and enjoyable town setting can be the healthiest, most invigorating and enriching experience in our daily lives.

The Warwick is just one of many things that could contribute to a successful downtown. Veterans Park might have a children's play structure in it to create another type of focus and define that area. Five Corners could be wonderful place to go if we had outdoor dining, a public fountain and restaurants with windows that open. All these things contribute to making our public spaces exciting and interesting. Creating a vision is simply identifying what you want your town to look like and where a variety of activities and services should be placed.

3. Make a plan

Creating a master plan for an entire district takes time and money. However, there are things we can do right now that are free. Marblehead 20|20 has placed an article on the warrant that creates a design-review board, which will administer design guidelines for non-residential buildings in the district. With design review in place, we can help businesses improve their property with the help of professional planners, architects and landscape designers.

As it turns out, Marblehead is one of the only towns that doesn't have design-review board. Many other towns like ours have had great success with design review, and you only have to go to Salem to see it's a better place for it.

Of course, making a plan also includes marketing, branding and economic-development strategies. We're working on these things as well, but strategies take time and where we want our town to go is part of a public discourse that everyone should participate in.

4. Implement the plan

A plan is only as good as its implementation strategy. Here's our implementation plan: Soon, the Marblehead Planning Board will be appointing a Design Review Board. (Your vote at Town Meeting in May will determine if it stays in effect). We hope to be meeting with the prospective new tenants at the old Shubie's location, and other work is planned in the area. Sidewalk reconstruction and improvements for the Five Corners area may start as early as March of this year, and we're busy raising money for street trees, brick sidewalks, new lighting and a garden and fountain on the island in front of Tony's Pizza (subject to Board of Selectmen approval).

We're also making a digital rendering of what the Five Corners area will look like with the improvements and another rendering of the Warwick Theater and Sprit of '76 Bookshop area with similar improvements. We've been in communication with all the town department heads, presented our thoughts to the Board of Selectmen and the Planning Board, appeared on Marblehead TV and are in the midst of a major fund-raiser to implement our vision.

5. Reevaluate and adjust

Were not here yet, but it's always important that while implementing the plan we reevaluate what's going on and how were doing. Maybe there are better ways of getting things done. Get feedback, learn from others and always strive to get the best advice and ideas, no matter where they may come from. Take these ideas and comments and work them back into the vision and plan.

Summary

When you break down the process into several small steps you can see it's not an impossible task. Each step is a hurdle crossed, and each hurdle is another accomplishment. We're making progress, but it still all comes back to your participation. Please get involved. We're a small but dedicated group, and it's a better project if we have your comments, feedback, ideas and passion. Volunteer your time, your expertise. Give to the Marblehead 20|20 Foundation whatever you can afford by making donations or pledges to Marblehead 20|20 Foundation, 62 Pleasant St., Marblehead, MA 01945.

You may never know how to do a hip replacement or keep the "12:00" from flashing on your VCR, but you can participate in and shape the rebuilding your downtown. It's not often we get a chance to leave a lasting impression in the world. This is a great opportunity, and the time is right. We want to hear from you.

 Michael McCloskey, is chairman of the Architecture and Urban Design

Sub-Committee of the Marblehead 20|20 Foundation.

He can be reached at Michael@marblehead2020.org.