I want to start a thread attempting to detail out what dlk called the min-min vision.
It is an approach that would try to handle what we already have. It is cheap. It uses market forces, village ordinances, creativity, and patience compared to an interventionistic and expensive TIF. Less dollars in, means that there is a higher odds of getting a good return. Less dollars in also means the rents will not be as high so that it is more likely for success of a business.
I think an assumption of this approach is that we already have a fantastic gem of an attraction in the town itself.
*top ranked high school
*fantastic feeder schools
*nat'l historic landmark
*organic unified Landscape design by a visionary from the 19th century
*great buildings too
*20 minutes to dt chicago
*close shot to colleges - the Loyola medical campus, U of I, U of C, Roosevelt, Columbia
*charming
*different / unique / special; if you're in a special place, you feel special
*a paradoxical place where life is a different than the run of the mill rat race like town; where there is a rural sense in the middle of gritty soud-west side Cook county, Ill.
* a few miles to two different interstates
*small - walkable, embraceable, changeable, where you're less of a cipher (try to find THAT in the 21 st century 20 minutes to dt chicago!)
*lower crime
*friendly and people know you vs the typical other towns
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Some sticky notes:
*work on Harlem and Ogden, the places where there is the most amount of traffic
*enforce maintenance ordinances in cbd property
*work on removing slumlords (corollary to above);
*assumption is that good people with creativity and spirit will win in the end
.....see chew chew's owner and the revolving door that was there before, grumpy's, blue parrot, parallel 42, fresh express, little bohemian; look also at the coonley house (not in the cbd, but a great example of merely having the right owner w/ the right standards can have a world of difference - see coonley before and after )
*taking care of the retail vacancies that we have now before biting off more, new stuff; 'taking care' means marketing the vacancies, vetting and helping retail operators; you would be surprised all the good stuff that can happen once you remove bad eggs and replace w/ good players; before you know it, you got improved EAV, but w/o the $20m price tag.
*ramp up Riverside PR ( I grew up in nearby Oak Park and only accidently stumbled into Riverside, and I am about to make the cotswolds :); imagine if there were someone w/ money and spirit who came here!)
*work on collecting people for the zoo's south entrance; we'll take a fraction of their 2-3 million vistors a year; again, PR as much as anything else.
*get a neat looking old timey - but natural gas trolley ferrying them
*attempt to help show riverside's brand distinction - oasis from the rat race, where a 'man can slow down and live his life full measure'; fold in horses and buggies (allow for this, zoning wise; it is up to the individual's creative business sense to make it work)
*keep it small and in scale, realizing that THIS is the best way for real attraction
*analyze current parking use and creatively re-define and re-use the surface
*think about allowing on-street parking in certain areas.
*ramp up archi tours
*plant the north and south trainscapes with 4 season white pine; every one in town thrown in $50 and maybe we planted all or most or it; we get our trees, 'we got our props'+, then we got our property increased)
*consider allowing some B and B's where appropriate (there is a PR benefit here, too; one of the clients can be the next coonley type of owner, or chew chew owner!)
*when the village is evaluating a cbd development, as the B1 ordinance allows, look at the business plan and the investors to make sure they seem appropriate for Riverside
*work on a comprehensive plan that would declare what Riverside is, and what is its most important assets; this helps to clarify and also sets a standard for any re-do or new work.
*tighten 'charm leaks' in the ordinance (maybe tighten the bulk limitations), especially since this approach is going to rely on them a lot (any other approach will too)
*maintain a high clear standard of what Riverside is (it is cheap to do this);
*make sure we don't lose properties that show the real riverside
*make sure our gateways show the real riverside - I am thinking now, for example, on Forest coming in from the west; on the north end we have two inviting victorians that show riverside; try to make sure they dont disappear; the southwest side has an indistinct people warehouse. If there ever were a chance to re-do the southwest warehouse, try to make it like across the street;
the upshot of this note is to try to re-do, or encourage re-do in the spirit of the real riverside - charming first. A property that is developed in the riverside cachet will probably 'work' better. I personally think that since Delaplaine crossing does not, at least to me, have that distinct sense of Riverside's place/cachet, that is one reason it is not 100 pct sold. Put old timey chimney's, bay windows, cornices, and turrets or something special in them, and people now know they are in Riverside and they'll pay.
*another aspect to this last point that is very important: most other proposals / visions seem to talk about ADDING MORE (hi density) housing in a convenient center of town; my point is that we already have hi density, conveniently located hi density on East, Forest, Pine, KImbark - why do more? for EAV?
In other words, encourage fancier/nicer/riverside-like(distinctive, well done) buildouts of what-is-already-there. In other words, try to re-do riverside according to the right way to do riverside one-parcel-at-a-time (a mid vision would do it one block at a time; a max vision would do it one cbd at a time).
Let's take Riverside back from the Kulaks and the philistines, one property at a time!
*have more activities around town that might attract people
.....throwing out ideas:
..if I had a dollar for everyone who told me that they got lost in Riverside, I .... never mind that -- anyway: how about, for example, the world's biggest treasure hunt/maze? I am talking HARD STUFF where you have to use a scientific calculator :).
..how about having music/shows/plays/movies (homemade) from all of our schools and from the community, and maybe pay real pro's too to be shown in the central buildings (town hall, library, presbyterian, water tower, episcopalian church...) where people would pay some dough and then amble around from building to building to watch the ongoing shows?
This is akin to how some of our holiday walks have been, but expanded a bit; it is like the Evanston 'First Night', which our family goes to on ny's eve (we have relatives there).
..more shows in the summer ampitheatre at blythe
..bike races
..walking races
..running races
etc
*pull them from OP
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m
How do you eat an elephant?
One bite at a time.
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+proper respect