The firm will be expected to deliver an updated plan by the end of the year, but only after extensive public discussions. The tab will be paid mostly with private dollars, but the city should pay a share because its stake in the downtown is huge. Burlington's downtown continues to impress those visitors with an architect's eye and a planner's imagination, including all of the consultants who came for interviews. Our substantial central business district gives the appearance of a much larger city. The dense building stock represents opportunities to planners, not a bygone era.
Consultants can afford to be effervescent, of course.
They wouldn't get hired if they sounded downbeat. And they seldom have to live with the consequences of their ideas. But you don't have to be a downtown advocate to take heart in the words of professionals who have seen lesser downtowns energized, mostly as a result of private development. An updated downtown plan should identify development opportunities. City government's most effective role could be to remove the roadblocks to development.