Plans announced for Downtown Akron Development Corporation

Development in Akron’s downtown has started to pick up, with more people moving into the city center and more deals being made to rehabilitate existing buildings. But there’s still a lot to do to shepherd leaders’ economic development visions, and community partners hope the creation of a new downtown development corporation will be the key to getting it done.

Akron leaders announced Thursday that they had raised $360,000 for each of the next three years from 17 partners to start the Downtown Akron Development Corp. and hire an executive director. The funding will pay for the executive director’s salary and benefits as well as leave some money for the organization to hold events to connect developers or do pre-development work.

On top of that, Kyle Kutuchief, the program director in Akron for the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, announced that his organization would contribute an additional $1.5 million over three years if the new executive director could raise $3 million to match it two-to-one. That money, he said, was to “get stuff done.”

“If you put together $4.5 million, you get a snowball effect going,” he said.

The iconic Akron Tower building on Cascade Plaza (right) is under contract to be sold by Huntington Bank. The 1931 building is the tallest downtown and is one of four buildings on the plaza that are in the early stages of redevelopment. At left, the former City Centre Hotel will soon be turned into apartments. At far left, the PNC Building is in the process of being sold to an unidentified developer. (Susan Zake / Signal Akron)

What are the priorities of the Downtown Akron Development Corp.?

The city already has partners involved in promoting downtown Akron and helping developers find money to complete their projects, said Suzie Graham Moore, Akron’s economic development director. But those organizations — the Downtown Akron Partnership, the Development Finance Authority of Summit County and the Summit County Land Bank — don’t have the ability to shepherd development projects from an idea to reality.

The head of the new development corporation will be able to focus on downtown, building developer relationships and doing development for development’s sake.

Graham Moore said there are three priorities for the person hired into the role:

Increasing the amount of residential development downtown.
Helping with the development of a convention center hotel.
Creating more dense retail in the city center.

Each of the priorities has had champions in the past, she said, but there was no one who focused their attention on getting that work done, serving as a liaison to those who would make the priorities happen.

“If we have all these things, it’s setting us up for success,” Graham Moore said. “It accelerates our growth.”

The role will pay between $135,000 and $175,000 annually, according to the job description, and the city will begin reviewing applications Jan. 24. The job is for a “savvy, resourceful” person who is “a visionary leader to spearhead catalytic redevelopment efforts” downtown. Interested applicants can email a resume and cover letter to jdodson@ralaw.com.

That person is expected to be the development corporation’s only employee and will report to a 17-member board of directors made up of representatives from the funders’ organizations.

Those groups include local government, the University of Akron, banks, law firms, business groups and foundations.

“A lot of these projects take an awful lot of work to move down the finish line,” Akron Mayor Shammas Malik said. “We need the focused, dedicated capacity of someone waking up every day thinking, ‘How can I move this forward?’ We can’t develop all of downtown by ourselves.”

With the city winning $10 million in a federal grant to help pay for work on a decommissioned, mile-long portion of the Innerbelt, and nearly $100 million to form a polymer hub, there is a lot of opportunity in Akron, Malik said. He said the leader of the downtown development corporation will help create more momentum. “There are so many good things happening,” Malik said. “I think the sky’s the limit.” (Arielle Kass / Signal Akron)

Optimism abounds about downtown Akron’s future

“There are so many good things happening,” Malik said. “I think the sky’s the limit.”

Summit County contributed to getting the role funded, and Greta Johnson, the assistant chief of staff in the office of Summit County Executive Ilene Shapiro, said the county government wanted to be involved because leaders there understand that downtowns anchor urban communities.

“There is momentum, there is buzz in Akron,” she said. “I believe we are on the precipice of great things down here.”

The creation of the development corporation will increase the visibility of projects available downtown, Graham Moore said — letting someone focus on building the connections that are needed to make development projects happen and doing the daily work to build capacity for more.

“It can be a very big deal; it can drive significant investment into downtown,” she said. “It should help us step on the virtual gas pedal.”

Kutuchief, with the Knight Foundation, said the role would not be duplicative — instead, it’s filling a gap in the community. He said he’s particularly interested in seeing a new hire work on bringing businesses to the now-empty first and second floors of downtown buildings, increasing the number of small businesses on Main Street.

Similar organizations have been successful in downtown Cleveland, said Howard Parr, the executive director of the Akron Civic Theatre, where the announcement was held. Parr said he thought the idea was very positive and likely would help solve some development problems.

“By and large, the concept really worked well in Cleveland. Having one downtown makes all the sense in the world,” he said. “For me, it’s really about a critical mass of activity.”

Editor’s note: The Knight Foundation is a funder of Signal Akron.

This article was originally published by a signalakron.org . Read the Original article here. .