By Andrew Edwards
Staff Writer
Millbrook has grown exponentially throughout the past several years, bringing in businesses, eateries, and recreational activities for community members to enjoy.
However, the city has lacked a true, defined downtown area that people can interact throughout. Currently, places such as the Millbrook Civic Center, Millbrook Public Library, and Village Green all lie just off of Main Street – the location that the city would like to ultimately transform into one unified, themed area.
Millbrook public officials, business owners and residents met at the civic center on Tuesday afternoon to give their opinions on what would make an ideal downtown area. Downtown Strategies, a consulting firm that specializes in solutions for community development, downtown revitalization, governmental relations, and public affairs, was the group that headed the meeting.
“We’re here to help you guys vision what your downtown area could be like. Our goal is to put together a five-year plan, and to make sure that the efforts that we all make to improve downtown are implementable and don’t sit on a shelf,” said Jenn Gregory, President of Downtown Strategies.
The representatives of Downtown Strategies acknowledged that we are currently coming out of a pandemic – something that has wreaked havoc on businesses across the county. They wanted to make sure that Millbrook was up to the task, and was financially stable enough to try to undergo a revitalization project.
Millbrook Mayor, Al Kelley, assured the group that Millbrook is doing just fine.
“Businesses here adapted very quickly to the changing times. Restaurants were the first to be hit, but they, as well as all other types of businesses, were able to survive and in some cases thrive. The city’s revenue has actually increased over the past year because people have stayed at home and shopped locally,” Kelley said.
Michael Gay, District 2 Councilman and council president for the City of Millbrook, echoed the mayor’s thoughts.
“We did a lot of virtual videos for different businesses over the past year, because we wanted everyone to stay relevant and not lose out because of the pandemic. We, as a city, want to show that we have the community’s back,” Gay said.
Several ideas were bounced around in the meeting for a potential new downtown area. Some of the suggestions were an expansion to the village green, an amphitheater, biking lanes, shops, restaurants, and two-story buildings along Main Street.
“I think it’s important that have some diversity in the setup of the buildings downtown. Some should be one-story and some should be two. We ultimately should have optic fiber internet connection downtown too, sort of like a public WiFi, for people to enjoy while they walk through the park, or eat at a restaurant,” said Ann Harper, Economic Development Director at the City of Millbrook.
There’s also what to do with the existing sports fields in the downtown area. In the Summer of 2020, it was announced that Millbrook would be undergoing a massive Multi-Sport Complex project called the “The Fields at 17 Springs”. The 65-70 acre subset of the Grandview YMCA’s 189 acres of land will bring new baseball, softball, and football fields to Millbrook, as well as basketball and tennis courts. There will also be a new lower pond built for water activities and sidewalks and parking for access to the facility.
Last July, Gay was quoted after the city approved the project, saying, “The vision shown by our City Council, the County Commission, the Board of Education and the YMCA is something we will all look back on in the years to come and be inspired by. Today is another step in the process to improve the quality of our community on many different levels.”
Thus, the current sporting venues in the downtown area will cease to be needed, which will free up more space for the potential ideas that were previously mentioned.
Ultimately, the public officials and business owners that attended the meeting are also just residents of the Millbrook area. Their goal is to create a tight knit community that will last for generations to come.
“We want our businesses to thrive and succeed every single day. With potential changes to the downtown area, we would be able to drive that traffic to the downtown area, which will steadily bolster the Millbrook economy and create a better quality of life for everyone,” said Jamie Brown, President of the Millbrook Area Chamber of Commerce.
Now, Downtown Strategies will take the comments from persons present, as well as look at the data from online surveys, and will come up with a strategic plan for the City of Millbrook. It will take 4-6 weeks before the group comes before public officials once again to present their findings.
“It might not be changes that I get to enjoy for very long, but my children and their grandchildren will be able to reap the benefits that a revitalized downtown will bring to Millbrook,” said Gay.
