Brooks, Duffy paint bright picture of downtown's future
December 8, 2009
Jim Stinson
D&C Staff Writer
County Executive Maggie Brooks and Mayor Robert Duffy today gave remarkably upbeat assessments of local economic development progress, saying Rochester and Monroe County are faring much better than many other municipalities around the state and nation.
Saying they preferred to take a ãglass half fullä approach, the two leaders told a large audience at the Riverside Convention Center that many projects either have been recently completed, are under construction or have been proposed.
They focused most of their comments on downtown, inasmuch as their presentation was to a joint meeting of the Rochester Downtown Development Corp. and the Rochester Rotary Club.
Downtown is the hub of the community, Duffy said, emphasizing that he meant the whole community, not just the city. He noted that it has changed dramatically, no longer being a center of retail but instead becoming an office center and, increasingly, a residential concentration.
He said he also wants it to be a place where people come for entertainment, renewing his pitch to the Rochester Broadway Theatre League to locate its new facility downtown instead of in the suburbs.
ãWe want Broadway shows downtown,ä Duffy said.
He said he envisions a downtown that is bustling again, the way it once did and the way it still does during the annual Rochester International Jazz Festival.
Brooks and Duffy repeatedly mentioned the Midtown Plaza redevelopment, the new ESL Federal Credit Union headquarters project on Chestnut Street, and the new crime laboratory under construction at West Broad Street and South Plymouth Avenue as examples of a community that isn‰t standing still, despite a tough economy.
ãBoy, do we need construction jobs,ä Brooks said, pointing out that the crime lab project involves 400 such positions.
The two leaders referred several times to the Renaissance Square project, which failed at the 11th hour earlier this year because the city balked at several key aspects of the East Main Street development plan. They both portrayed the project as a rare example when their collaborative efforts
failed, saying that most of the time they see eye-to-eye on projects.
JFSTINSO@DemocratandChronicle.com
