Dear Mayor Swearingen,
The recent events with the Forest City Project has served as a catalyst for the urgency in writing you. It disappoints me that another effort or attempt at Revitalizing downtown has become unsuccessful. The potential is there for Downtown Fresno to be as vibrant as other metropolitan cities such as San Jose, Portland, Santa Cruz, and the list is endless. Fresno is not alone in dealing with aged buildings, homelessness, vacant lots, and lack of parking but the above mentioned cities have managed to work on those issues in conjunction with developing their downtown public spaces. Fresno has neglected the downtown area and focused its efforts on urban sprawl. The development north has only exacerbated the downtown problem leaving an abundance of buildings grossly decomposing. I pose this question to you Mayor Swearingen, in today's economic time businesses are suffering and going out of business, Gottschalk's is one of our largest local business and it is inevitably going to fall victim to liquidation, my question is this: What is Fresno going to do with the vacant space in Riverpark? The Fulton Mall used to be a vibrant area for shopping but as the urban sprawl moved north downtown merchants suffered. Time can only tell if Riverpark will meet its demise just as the Fulton Mall has, should Fresno neglect to renovate already existing space.
It is important to me to voice my concern about the revitalization of downtown. Unfortunately my voice as a constituent could not be heard today during the community meeting. I would hope the Mayor's office and City Council will consider having more community meetings for feedback pertaining to the Downtown Revitalization during non work hours so that more constituents voices can be heard.
I thank you for your time Mayor Swearingen and wish you and the council the best in tackling this endless feat!
L. Villanueva
District 7
