Arts Center Pitched As Key Part Of Downtown Redevelopment

Tripp Muldrow from Arnett Muldrow & Associates used the newly-formed Town of Leesburg Downtown Business Association as a platform to share his opinions on the 2003 Business Development Strategy, a report that recommended ways for the town to enhance its position as a place to do business.

One of the goals set in the report included researching sites for a Leesburg Arts Center by 2006.

"There's no better place than in downtown Leesburg," Muldrow said. "These facilities are done by partnerships."

The Leesburg Town Council last month deferred action on a proposal to provide funding for a feasibility study to allow a consultant to analyze future sites. That council was slated to continue its debate on the topic this month.

"As a business district, how can sites be examined that are underutilized?" Muldrow asked the LDBA members, business and property owners who are working to promote economic development opportunities through private sector leadership.

Muldrow, who with Kimley-Horn and Associates, Inc., developed the town's Crescent District Master Plan, said the redevelopment vision it outlined served as one example where a liability turned into an asset. The Crescent District recognizes that the traditional downtown, now nearly fully occupied, could be expanded in selected areas along Town Branch and the W&OD trail.

He expounded upon the ideas presented in the Leesburg's Development strategy: What will the underdeveloped part of downtown look like?

"Leesburg is a place where entrepreneurs grow and thrive," Muldrow said.

Muldrow reiterated the results of the some 40 interviews performed in 2001 for the purposes of the study. While downtown received positive reviews for quality merchants and restaurants that regularly bring visitors downtown, interviews indicated that Leesburg can be a regulatory quagmire. Other negatives included hard-to-find parking, need for a gathering space, and the number of businesses being run as hobbies.

"Leesburg also has a desperate need for affordable housing," Muldrow said. "And a need to attract young families downtown."

Although Leesburg has such a distinct downtown character, it becomes unconventional on the outskirts, Muldrow said. He cited a study from 1962 in which residents analyzed what they wanted to save during "the flood of change." And they didn't want to be like other communities-lost in the "suburbia avalanche."

The community still faces the same challenges, Muldrow pointed out. He referred to suggestions in the business strategy report, which includes better connections to the W&OD trail.

In his presentation, he used several other towns, including North Augusta, SC, as examples to illustrate how local business owners raised money themselves to make projects happen downtown. The private sector and several government representatives started a land banking committee in North Augusta and raised $1.8 million.

"Their vision was to create a town center," he said. "They also wanted a freeway bypass. They leaned on the legislative delegates in Washington. Their organization pushed it through. The private sector was out front."

Leesburg's performing arts center task force, comprised of 15 people, two from the EDC, two from the public arts commission, and volunteers, will soon apply for a 501c3 tax-exempt status granted to non-profits. The nonprofit, tasked with raising funds for a performing arts center, should be operational by the end of the year, according to Ara Bagdasarian, chairman of the town's economic development commission.

The new non-profit will in part be comprised of business owners who will evaluate with potential sites in the town, and press the project from concept to construction. The primary task for the non-profit will involve some serious fundraising, Bagdasarian said. He believes it will take about six years before ground is broken for the site.

"We want to get a full-time executive director," Bagdasarian said.

"What is remarkable is we did not speak to Tripp before the meeting," Bagdasarian said, adding that he had come to the same conclusion about a need for a performing arts center in downtown Leesburg.

"I would love to see 99 percent of funds come from the private sector," Bagdasarian said. "It will take some heavy hitters to step up for this facility."