LANSING, Mich. — The Old Town Commercial Association revealed their new strategic plan Tuesday evening at a community meeting. This is something they have been working on for months, and with the help of the community, they hope it will shape a better future for Old Town.
The meeting was held at the UrbanBeat Event Center.
Some of their goals with this new strategic plan are to boost businesses, build better communication, bring more people to the area and showcase how great Old Town really is.
"Old Town is comprised of 30 plus unique boutique businesses. We have 10 restaurants, we have five art galleries. We have a river walk that connects us to the rest of the city. We have curated art spaces and murals and outdoor sculptures. And so, we want people to know that Old Town is still here and Old Town is still strong," said Executive Director Robert Doran-Brockway.
Since 2019, OTCA has been gathering feedback from the community and collecting online data. Back in May, they held a series of focus groups with merchants, business owners, property owners, city leaders and those who live in the area.
With all the feedback, they have been able to narrow it down to four areas they plan to focus on. Those areas are business development and support, communication, organizational development and sustainability and community building.
Those in attendance were able to see how far they have come with the plan, read objective goals and share their ideas on how they hope to see it succeed.
"We're about 75 percent done, so we're going to close that feedback loop. And we're going to allow people to choose how they want to help us with the strategic plan. Because, you know, a lot of times organizations do strategic plans in a vacuum, and so we decided very early on that we didn't want to," said Doran-Brockway. "This is giving people the opportunity to have their last say, and then to say, 'Okay, this is what you're doing, I want to help with communication, or I want to help with sustainability.'"
They plan to take what they have gathered from the meeting to help righting up the road map of Old Town's future. They will have a board retreat this upcoming Sunday and hope to have the plan fully ready in a month.
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