5/27/2009 City Council Oks Renaissance Plan

Chehalis City Council Oks Renaissance Plan

The Chronicle, Wednesday, May 27, 2009
By Marqise Allen

The Chehalis City Council’s unanimous approval of a city revitalization effort dubbed the Chehalis Renaissance Project plan was met with applause during Tuesday’s meeting.

“It’s a 25-year plan that’s pretty amazing to have in front of us,” City Manager Merlin MacReynold said. “It all started from a discussion with the council as how to get our arms around our future as a city. It’s been an incredible project.”

And now a couple years later, the city hopes to push forward with a plan to reinvent and tweak the city’s current image.

Even the city’s logo and tagline, “The Rose City,” will be recycled, MacReynold said.

Instead of starting on big projects such as building an art installation on the abandoned gas station property on Main Street, acquiring and then reusing the St. Helens Hotel, or building multi-story parking garages, smaller projects will take place first due to financial constraints.

“Even though we’re facing some economic challenges, I think this may be the time to do this,” said Councilor Dennis Dawes, who said the project would proceed in small “significant” steps. “This isn’t something that will be seen overnight. It wasn’t planned overnight, and it won’t be done overnight.”

MacReynold says the city plans to run a pilot project in September and get community feedback before moving forward with more sweeping changes.

The test run will be along two blocks of Market Street and Chehalis Avenue.

Chehalis is working with the Washington State Department of Transportation to place signs along Interstate 5 to pull people into the city, as well as getting their own signs within the city to guide visitors to well-known destinations around town.

Trees will be planted along the streets, and new parking designs will be implemented.

The trial run will be used as the center of the Chehalis Renaissance and additional changes will move outward from there.

Local response to the pilot program from how the parking designs work to even the type of trees used will guide the future of the project.

“We want to make this a better place for people who are here and people who want to come here, and for businesses that are here and businesses that want to come here,” MacReynold said.