GREELEY – A Greeley business group is getting ready to take action on redeveloping and revitalizing the city’s downtown business district.

“I think you will see some initial steps in the next 60 days,´ said Bob Tointon, a co-chair for the Greeley Town Center Business Association.

On Aug. 12, Tointon and Ken Whitney, another member of the group, met with the Greeley City Council, seeking a $75,000, no-interest loan to hire a full-time economic-development professional.

“We’ve gone beyond the point of a consultant and volunteers,” Tointon said. “We can’t do it by ourselves. We need someone full-time.

“We have a lot going for us,” he added. “But for (downtown) to be a vibrant as we would like it to be, we need ongoing economic development.”

Whitney agreed, saying, “The city has a selfish reason to see this pass through. The city is a partner in this. If downtown deteriorates, property taxes deteriorate. Your revenues deteriorate.”

Hiring a professional economic-development specialist was the first recommendation of a study conducted in June by the Fort Collins-based Steiner Co. The 35-page study was commissioned by the downtown business association, which feared that a “window of opportunity” for redevelopment is closing, and that growth in other parts of the city is aggravating the situation.

According to Tointon and Whitney, the specialist will spearhead the creation of a downtown development authority and develop a formal redevelopment plan. This plan will be presented to residents in the downtown area next year. If approved, the development authority will be responsible for expansion of the downtown job base as the foundation for future development.

“It will be more on economic development than on events,” Tointon said. “This is not a one- or two-year thing. This will be ongoing.”

The study found that Greeley’s downtown area – bordered by 16th Street on the south, 23rd Avenue on the west and railroad tracks on the north and east – was seen by many as dying, the victim of commercial and residential development in other parts of the city.

Chip Steiner, the report’s author, said the downtown area has many assets but faces the lingering perception that it offers little for consumers.

He said the desire exists to revitalize the core business area, and it can be done if consumers have a reason to go to downtown.

“Given a good reason, people will patronize downtown,” he said.

Among the downtown assets cited by Steiner are two hotels, the Union Colony Civic Center, many government offices, corporate offices, banks and professional services. Also cited were Lincoln Park, a number of nonchain restaurants and some specialty retail businesses.

Liabilities that Steiner listed included the feeling that the downtown area is being left in the dust by new development, the loss of much of the traditional retail business and automobile dealerships, the perception that downtown is pedestrian unfriendly and that there is not enough parking.

He also said there is a reluctance to commit tax money to redevelopment as was done in the early 1980s, when the downtown pedestrian plazas were created.

Greeley’s downtown has been hit with several business closures recently, including Fleetside Pub & Brewing and Brown’s Shoe Fit Co. Garnsey & Wheeler Ford has announced plans to relocate to the western part of town.

“The strongest impression,” Steiner said, “is that Greeley just feels depressed about its central business district. It isn’t really that the community doesn’t care. It is just that it has seen too many attempts and too much money wasted in efforts that have failed to deliver. The community doesn’t want to get burned again.”

Steiner said that while downtown redevelopment in other Colorado communities has focused on attracting trendy retail businesses and building loft apartments, this approach would not necessarily work in Greeley.

“You don’t open a gourmet restaurant when people’s taste may be for a drive-in hamburger,” he said. “Greeley has a lower economic profile than most other communities along the Front Range. But that is changing.”

Expansion of the job base is the first step in redevelopment. This, Steiner said, will lead to a greater demand for retail businesses to service the needs of “a captive audience.” With a solid, basic retail community in the downtown, more upper-end businesses and services will naturally follow.

In addition to hiring an economic-development specialist and creation of a downtown development authority, Steiner suggested refocusing the efforts of the city’s urban-renewal authority on downtown and the creation of a business improvement district to market and promote the downtown area for the city.

These entities, he said, could use methods such as operating mill levies and private leveraged financing to fund redevelopment.

Tointon praised the study’s assessment of the downtown situation, adding that Steiner’s recommendations are logical and take into account the local political situation.

“I think it is a good, objective evaluation of the situation as it is,” he said. “I can’t say there was anything that surprised me.

“There aren’t any magic silver bullets,” Tointon added. “He isn’t offering any cookie-cutter solutions.”

Tointon said that revitalizing the downtown area is important not just from an economic standpoint. A healthy downtown can be seen as the conscience and self-image of a community, he said.