Washington now has a plan in place laying out potential improvements to the downtown area. The plan is the result of a lengthy study by Discover Downtown Washington and has been accepted by the city council.

“Discover Downtown needs to have a plan like this in order to be eligible for grants,” said Washington Mayor Dave Rhoads. “Each of the projects in this plan still have to come back to the council for approval. They just can’t go downtown and do what they want, they still need council approval.”

“I was there when the council accepted it. It was so wonderful it made me want to jump up and down with joy. To see their interest and willingness to collaborate with us on this was great,” said Amber Warden with Discover Downtown Washington. “We started on this about seven months ago. This was part of our long-term Discover Downtown Washington plan. We wanted the city to be a part of this and they showed up for all of the planning meetings and made their input.”

Washington is trying to return to the Indiana Main Street program. The downtown area was once on that list, but it lapsed. Now they are using things laid out in the plan to try and regain that standing.

“It’s a shared vision for all of us. To see everyone working together is pretty amazing,” said Warden. “We are going to start small. We want to make small and impactful improvements over the next couple of years. I think we are going to be looking for grant funds that will help us take little bites out of this pie.”

“There is some low hanging fruit we could go ahead and tackle and keep things moving,” said Rhoads. “Signage is one thing I think we can do. Coming up with nicer and more upto- date signage, especially out at the roundabout, signage downtown. It is not really expensive. There are grant opportunities and we can move ahead on that.”

“We are going to tackle things like signage and lighting and maybe play areas by bringing more kid-friendly things downtown. We might look at adding some benches,” said Warden. “Maybe the businesses will get more involved and we will have more places to dine. We have a few places that will be restaurants that are talking about opening later this year. But we want to make sure that if people are coming downtown to grab something to eat that they have a place to sit in the summer.”

The plan is more of a listing of ideas and potential projects than a demand list of things that must be done. In fact, Rhoads says there are some bigger projects he is not willing to tackle in the foreseeable future.

“There are also some larger things in the plan I don’t want to tackle right now. One is a suggestion to do bumpouts like we just put in around the Commons. There is a suggestion to add those all the way down Main Street. I don’t like those. They are expensive,” he said. “There is a suggestion to change the lighting downtown. Another is a suggestion to get rid of the one-way streets downtown. Twoway traffic on Main Street would be a major headache and a major undertaking. I am not interested in doing that.”

“This shows a common visage between the city and downtown. It gives us a starting point to work on small things and to start planning for bigger things together in the future,” said Warden.
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