Photo by Tom Clune

Bringing Downtown to Life: Our 2008 Goals

The DNA officers met in person with the DID and the Mayor to present and discuss our 2008 goals. We arrived at these goals based on resident feedback. Read 2008 Goals Letter:

Since 2003, the Downtown Neighborhood Alliance has been empowering downtown residents with a formal voice regarding issues and opportunities in their neighborhood. To date, we have:

• Facilitated the launch of the DID and the Responsible Hospitality Committee (now the Hospitality Resource Partnership)
• Donated funds to the Farmer’s Market, DID, Crossroads, PICA, The Black Rep, local events and other neighborhood groups
• Championed the beautification of downtown through such endeavors as Windows Downtown
• Pushed for smarter parking, better use of empty space and the addition of more late-night police support
• Supported the timely demolition of the abandoned Police and Fire Station
• Hosted three very successful fundraisers that earned us over $10,000 to put toward our city

Now, in 2008, we’re working harder than ever to collaborate with merchants, developers and city officials to focus our efforts on the issues most important to the people who live here. When asked, residents provided the following feedback that we, and now you, can help answer, address and act upon this year:
SAFETY

• Safety in general, and for all, day and night
• A consistent and greater police presence especially during evening hours
• Better street lighting
• Construction zones that offer better alternate pedestrian walkways

RETAIL

• More diverse retail and ethnic cuisine options
• Need-based stores, like a grocery and pharmacy
• Better blending of retail with residential space
• Larger (or more established) downtown retailers to help draw foot traffic to smaller, independently-owned ones

QUALITY OF LIFE

• Reasonable control of noise/chaos from late-night entertainment
• More green space, parks/less surface parking lots
• Reasonable upkeep, maintenance and preservation of historic properties
• Address – and recharge – the stalled traffic circulator plans for the Dunk/Trinity area

We understand that many of these issues affect more than just residents. In fact, we’re looking to evolve our relationship with other area groups (e.g. late-night merchants and employees, tourists, students, etc.) to better approach and address such specific concerns as late-night and weekend safety.
Most importantly, we want to emphasize that we are not an organization that simply lists our complaints and hopes others will solve them for us. We’ll come to you with ideas, suggestions and open minds. We want to help you understand our neighborhood’s issues and where we see opportunities to collaborate to resolve them – we can’t do it alone.

As always, we thank you for your continued support of our efforts to make downtown Providence a successful place to live, work and visit. As this area becomes home to more and more people, we all need to listen to residents’ concerns and ideas so this neighborhood – our neighborhood – can reach its full potential.