Downtown Meridian has long been the heart of our community. It offers unique events and opportunities to the public throughout the year and is home to favorite restaurants like Rick’s Press Room, Flatbread Community Oven, and Epi’s. It serves as a meeting place for friends and family, is home to great organizations and entities like the Boys and Girls Club, the Meridian Food Bank, and the Meridian Community Center, and many others who have chosen this area for their place of business. Our downtown is a vibrant part of our community that gives us much to be proud of and to celebrate.
Downtown has many good things to offer today, but is far from reaching its true potential. Recently the Meridian Development Corporation began an urban renewal master planning process for our downtown. With the leadership of CRSA, representatives from the downtown community are working together to create a long-term vision for downtown Meridian. These volunteers represent a variety of different industries (business, service, non profit, media etc.) and are contributing their ideas on how Meridian’s downtown should look for the next 30 years. As well, they are discussing the many opportunities for the growth in our downtown core.
Known as “Destination Downtown” this effort is now halfway through the visioning process. The result will ultimately be a downtown that is welcoming and open for our citizens, and is both practical and functional for our business community. There is still time to have your voice heard on the future of downtown. This Wednesday, January 20, there will be an opportunity to find out more and provide feedback on the work done to date. A stakeholders meeting will be held from 2:00 pm - 4:00 pm at the old Farmers and Merchants Bank located at 703 N. Main Street. For more information about this meeting, to see the work done to date, or to learn more about the process, visit www.destination-downtown.org.
I also want to inform you about a new venue opening this week in downtown called “The Ground Floor.” We all know small businesses are the economic engines of our economy and are vital to the sustained growth of our local and regional economy. At start-up, small businesses can also be extremely vulnerable and in need of strong support. The Ground Floor will provide needed support to help cultivate healthy enterprises that create jobs and wealth, strengthen the economy, commercialize new technologies, and attract renewed vitality to our city’s downtown core.
Located at 136 E. Idaho, The Ground Floor is a modern connected workspace in a historic building in the heart of our community designed for Idaho entrepreneurs. This project is part of the redevelopment effort of the Meridian Development Corporation in conjunction with VengaWorks as the managing organization. The Ground Floor will provide an opportunity for entrepreneurs and business professionals to connect, collaborate and communicate with a wide network of talented individuals and companies. I’m sure it will quickly become a well-known hub of creativity, innovation, and encouragement, and that future tenants will eventually grow and become part of an entrepreneurial business cluster in our downtown.
I encourage you to make plans to attend the launch party for The Ground Floor on January 20 from 4:00 p.m. to 7:00 pm. The Ground Floor will be giving away one month of free rent to the first 10 guests to arrive! This opening will be preceded by the latest meeting of Jelly! — a co-working event that brings creative minds together to work alongside each other in a welcoming environment.
These are great opportunities to come and see what is taking place in our downtown. Come for the meetings, stay for dinner, then cap off your evening with a glass of wine at Corkscrews. When you're done, send me an email to tell me about your experience in downtown at mayortammy@meridiancity.org. Together, we can celebrate Meridian and the future of our downtown as the premier place to live, work and raise a family.