North Main Revitalization Initiative
Enhancing North Main - Energizing Sheridan!
North Main Area Master Plan July 2009
Click here for PDF file (file size 6 MB)
Background
Over the past ten years, Sheridan has undertaken multiple planning and community visioning processes that have helped identify what people in Sheridan want to see for the future of our community.Time and time again, people in Sheridan have said that they want vibrant neighborhoods & business districts to promote job creation and commercial expansion. They’ve said that they want to promote residential and commercial development in the City as a way of keeping our downtown healthy and reducing needless sprawl and loss of agricultural lands. And they’ve said they want to promote the character of our community through maintenance of our historic buildings, expansion of bike paths, and restoration of Big & Little Goose Creeks within the City.
The North Main Revitalization Initiative
The North Main area of Sheridan presents a perfect opportunity for us to work together as a community to help realize these goals. Already, young families are moving back into the North Main area and businesses are increasingly looking at this part of town for investment. In 2010, the Wyoming Department of Transportation is planning to spend millions of dollars to repave and enhance North Main Street. Using the WYDOT process as a catalyst, and with a concerted community effort, we can revitalize North Main, create new housing, enhance existing neighborhoods, and create new job opportunities.The vision necessary for such an effort can’t come from an elected official or from a government office. For such a effort to succeed, it has to be formed and driven by the property owners, residents, and business owners of the North Main area.
The North Main Revitalization Initiative (NMRI) is a plan to engage residents and business owners in the North Main area in a neighborhood-scale effort to spur revitalization of the entire North Main district. The City of Sheridan will help organize this process and will provide financial and staffing resources to promote plans developed by residents and business owners in this area. But at the end of the day, the vision and success of this initiative must be driven by the people with the most at stake in this area – those that live, work, and own businesses in the north part of Sheridan.
This initiative is intended to serve as a model for future community engagement and project implementation in Sheridan. A model designed to develop community capacity and to support ongoing and future planning efforts such as the City-County comprehensive planning process.
The North Main Process
During the summer of 2008, the City of Sheridan worked with citizens and business owners in the North Main area to organize neighborhood-level meetings to discuss barriers to revitalization and to begin to identify workable solutions that can help promote commercial and residential investment in the North Main area. These meetings took the form of neighborhood block parties, after-hours business meetings, and community gatherings in Thorne-Rider Park. In September 2008, the City convened a North Main Summit to bring together participants from the neighborhood-level meetings to divide into community task forces and begin to develop concrete plans to address barriers identified by residents and business owners in the North Main area. In October, the task forces delivered their set of recommendations to the City for resources and concrete actions that are needed to stimulate revitalization of the North Main area. Click here to view the North Main Revitalization Initiative Report in its entirety.
Out of the NMRI, North Main business owners and residents formed the North Main Neighborhood Association (NMNA) to ensure the communication and implementation of the vision and goals expressed during the Initiative. NMNA was incorporated in March 2009. Its Board of Directors is made up of volunteers who participated throughout the NMRI process and who live, work, and own businesses in the North Main area.
Learn more about the efforts underway to implement the recommendations of the NMRI report by visiting the North Main Neighborhood Association website.
I believe that we will look back on this moment as a turning point in the future of North Main. We are blessed to live in a beautiful community with a vibrant downtown. Some people say we inherited this place from our grandparents, but I say we are borrowing it from our grandchildren. Working together, we can make sure our community continues to be a place where our children and grandchildren will want to live, work, and raise families.
Mayor Dave Kinskey
Click here for a brief description of the North Main Revitalization Initiative and how to get involved.
I believe that we will look back on this moment as a turning point in the future of North Main. We are blessed to live in a beautiful community with a vibrant downtown. Some people say we inherited this place from our grandparents, but I say we are borrowing it from our grandchildren. Working together, we can make sure our community continues to be a place where our children and grandchildren will want to live, work, and raise families.
Mayor Dave Kinskey
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