Provo hopes to improve downtown

PROVO — In front of Ottavio's during the summer, it's not unusual to see an accordion player strolling around the granite-topped tables performing for guests dining outside among plants. A handful of regulars occasionally bring dogs, which sit complacently on the sidewalk as their owners relish favorite dishes.

The Italian eatery was the first in the downtown district to take its cuisine outside — and others have followed. "We're in the old part of historic Provo and most (of) the time it is beautiful to sit outside and be there," says one of Ottavio's co-owners, John Belvedere. "You're able to enjoy the ambiance of downtown Provo."

Many neighboring business are making similar improvements and hope to attract residents and visitors to the historic streets of the city's center. Last weekend they came one step closer with the city's help.

Saturday morning, the Provo City Redevelopment Agency invited business owners, residents and Brigham Young University students to meet with a consulting team from Salt Lake in the first of four workshops at the Provo City Library at Academy Square to create a strategy to revitalize downtown.

"There are two things that we're trying to do with this project," Paul Glauser, the director of Provo's Redevelopment Agency, said in a statement. "We're trying to achieve a common community vision of what downtown Provo should be and to come up with a specific step-by-step action plan to accomplish that."

In Saturday's discussion led by consultants Laura Hanson and Soren Simonsen of Cooper Roberts Simonsen Associates, more than 55 people worked on creating that community vision and discussing the assets and weaknesses of the area.

Feeling unsafe may keep some homeowners away, said Bob Allen, an activist in the Franklin neighborhood, south of Center Street. "I've had people tell me they'd rather not walk along Center because it's so dark. There are a lot of dark, empty storefronts."

Allen said he and his wife had a difficult time walking in the downtown area last week because there was so much snow on the sidewalks.

"It's about creating a will and a desire to walk in the downtown area," he said. "If there was something to attract (residents) to downtown, then they would come."

One of the challenges some business owners face is that they have to rent their building space.

"I think the business owners, not necessarily the building owners, are all kind of on the same page," said Beccy Neely, who rents space for her and her husband's clothing boutique, Mode, 45 N. University Ave. "I think you see a lot of out-of-state building owners that don't really know what's going on."