That's in addition to more than 800 who already have offered up their opinions or ideas online or in meetings for what to do with what had been a fairly stagnant downtown for years.
Although several projects have been completed downtown in the past year or more and others are in the works, the downtown plan will bring into focus what a company hired to help the city has developed after its extensive interaction in the past seven months with residents.
The vision statement guiding the plan is for "a small town feel with a vibrant city life... It's a place where everyone can live, work, learn, play and shop — all within a five-minute walk."
Beth Elliott, who is the main planner on the project and works for the international design and consulting company called Stantec, said the main goal they are thinking about is getting another 1,000 housing units downtown and that retail, restaurant and entertainment businesses, as well companies seeking employees, will soon follow.
Elliott said that would be the catalyst to liven up the downtown, something that residents have repeatedly been telling leaders they would like to see happen in the growing city of about 38,500.
Another longtime, nationally known planner David Dixon, who also works for the company, agrees that if a public-private partnership can bring more housing downtown it would have a multiplying effect.
In talking to residents, Dixon said he has heard that "people want their downtown back."
He also said people seem open to many new ideas and he didn't once hear anyone say "not in my backyard."
Dixon said nationally the labor supply is shrinking, but that with the many higher education facilities in Moorhead a goal should be to try to keep those graduates here. What many of those young people want, he said, is a vibrant, walkable downtown.
Unlike some other cities he has seen, Dixon thinks Moorhead has a "pretty good shot at being successful in the new economy" because of the availability of land downtown, the city's leadership, the river and the universities.
Plans for several different sections of the downtown area were placed on whiteboards and on display in the open house gathering in the Moorhead Center Mall atrium for residents to examine and add comments with sticky notes or by placing stickers on ideas they liked.
David Collins said he came to the meeting to look at the plans and ideas. He said he didn't care about the housing plans, but was more concerned about improvements that would make the city more livable, especially in the downtown Woodlawn Park which is near to his home.
He said some ideas were "pipe dreams" and that many boil down to a matter of money.
Sara Gurath, who also lives and works in the downtown area, said she "loved the community engagement" at the gathering.
"It's exciting. I think there's good energy here," she said. "It's a lovely feeling to be here and feel like I'm part of a community."
Elliott said the next step after visions have been laid out and commented upon is to develop guidelines and plans for downtown streets and key sites
"We will also have plans on how to get it done," she said. "We'll have a plan for action."
She said there might be little steps at first when a plan is presented and approved by the City Council this summer, but she said the plan will also offer ideas on how to take bigger steps.
Moorhead has had many downtown plans on and off for decades, but this time officials are hoping it will be different.
Already, the city has signed a development agreement with the Roers Companies in Fargo on redeveloping the Center Mall.
In addition, another new railroad underpass on 11th Street that is a top priority of the Minnesota Department of Transportation would ease traffic flow and provide better access to locations on both sides of the railroad tracks that split the downtown.
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February 07, 2020 at 10:00AM
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Moorhead downtown plan taking shape - INFORUM
"plan" - Google News
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