Diane Laird is the executive director of the Downtown Dover Partnership.
Downtown revitalization is not for the fainthearted. It is a lengthy, complex and often challenging process. But, as we consider the future of downtown Dover, we must ask the question: Do we allow the current market to guide its future or do we need to proactively direct its future by way of a strategic plan created by a community-driven vision?
Further, realizing that increased policing, social services and legal remedies are vital factors to help bring about a more favorable area, they are nevertheless “community interventions to treat the symptoms of violence, but (do) not … transform the neighborhood conditions that create it.” According to Dr. Eugenia C. South, what’s missing “is a mechanism to encourage ‘focused investment in the high-risk places that allow violence to thrive.’” (See brookings.edu/articles/want-to-reduce-violence-invest-in-place.)
In 2020, with over 50% vacancy and chronic disinvestment in the heart of the business district, the Downtown Dover Partnership brought together a coalition of teammates to direct the future of the area. The resulting Capital City 2030: Transforming Downtown Dover plan was created with meaningful input from more than 880 residents, professionals and public/private partners statewide, as well as through responses to surveys from the community, one-on-one interviews and thought leader groups. Led by Mosaic Development Partners, a professional team of planners and developers working in economic nodes similar to downtown Dover, a plan emerged that coalesced the goals, hopes and vision of that community input with best revitalization practices that have been identified and actually implemented by the planning team.
The plan embodies strategies to reimagine the physical space through arts and placemaking, recreational opportunities and significant reinvestment in multiple vacant and underutilized properties, while also addressing the needs of the residents’ social space through a philosophy of equity for the broad, diverse demographic that “is Dover.” This includes implementing economic and equitable development strategies by engaging the diverse local workforce; transforming vacant and underutilized properties into mixed-use, mixed-income (as well as market-rate) housing projects; enhancing transportation options; and creating a physical environment that can be accessed and enjoyed by the entire community.
To sum it up, addressing social, legal and policing pillars, while concurrently implementing an aggressive plan to literally transform the physical and social environment, suggests that only the chicken and the egg together will truly transform Delaware’s capital city into a thriving, sustainable place to live, work, visit, recreate and enjoy.
Reader reactions, pro or con, are welcomed at civiltalk@iniusa.org.
