Consulting group calls public to give their input on plan for
downtown
This weekend Hollister’s downtown will be alive with activity
including tours of the downtown area, a free movie event and even a
flashlight tour of downtown Hollister.
Consulting group calls public to give their input on plan for downtown
This weekend Hollister’s downtown will be alive with activity including tours of the downtown area, a free movie event and even a flashlight tour of downtown Hollister.
It’s all part of a weekend-long interactive community presentation, called a Downtown Immersion.
The Hollister Downtown Association in taking the next steps toward a downtown master plan is working with RBF Consulting – a consulting firm that provides professional consulting services including civil engineering for land development, water resources, transportation, structures and public works.
Oct. 5 and 6 the public is invited to lend their opinions and share their thoughts with developers to help create a plan for downtown Hollister.
“There will be lots of activities and we will be discussing how to incorporate the shared values of the community as well as how to incorporate development ideas into the downtown,” said Suzanne Rynne, a project manager.
The downtown area was at a state where they needed some fresh life, said Brenda Weatherly, executive director of the Hollister Downtown Association. The downtown area has seen less foot traffic lately and people rarely come downtown at night, unless they have a specific destination in mind. Many of the downtown storefronts have for sale or rent signs in the front windows.
“You can’t do the same thing over and over and expect the same outcome,” Weatherly said. “We needed more vision and a way to incorporate more community input so that we could encompass the greatest amount of people.”
One of the things RBF has been able to provide the downtown association with is a fresh set of eyes, Weatherly said.
“They’ve also had experience working with other cities and how they have incorporated new ideas,” Weatherly said.
RBF has done similar makeover projects in cities all over the state, including Ft. Bragg, Rocklin, Yucca Valley and Los Banos.
The idea is that the Downtown Plan will be a community-based plan developed with extensive input from residents, business owners, property owners and civic leaders.
When complete the Downtown Plan will help implement the community’s vision, expressed through this process, for the future.
The Downtown Immersion is an interactive and collaborative series of community activities – all focused on understanding the community’s desires. They will set priorities about what types of businesses are needing downtown, as well as types of parking and landscaping for the area.
“This is the first step in understanding what the community wants and what’s important to them,” said Al Zelinka, an RBF project director. “This weekend will identify what [areas] we need more input on and then we can expand the plan and bring it back to the community. Then we can take this draft blueprint and make a more finalized product.”
One of the activities Weatherly was most excited about is the outdoor movie, Disney’s “Cars.” The movie will be shown on the side of the Vault restaurant in downtown Hollister.
“The consultants were actually the ones that suggested showing a movie,” Weatherly said. “One of the things that I think is neat about this movie is the way it parallels our downtown.”
Cars is a movie about a racecar who stumbles into a lost town that was forgotten when the highway was moved.
Weatherly saw the parallels to when the bypass was put in place outside of Hollister.
“The public is invited to bring blankets and lawn chairs and anything they want to eat or drink and come camp out and watch a movie outside with their friends and neighbors,” Weatherly said.
Should it rain the movie will be shown upstairs in the Vault restaurant.
Following the movie there will be another adventurous activity – a downtown flashlight walk. With the flashlight walk the idea was that often when downtowns are planned they are thought of only as daytime places, Zelinka said. So there are always concerns about nighttime use.
“It’s really important to understand the downtown in the evening environment,” Zelinka said.
