By Michael Bisch and Rosalie Paine

The downtown plays a critical role in maintaining a sustainable Davis community, compact with greenbelts and surrounded by agricultural land. The downtown is the primary business, entertainment and cultural center of Davis — a hub of innovation and creativity and the extraordinary lifestyle center of the city.

The Davis Downtown Business Association is proud of our downtown, which welcomes a variety of residents, visitors and students seeking diverse and uniquely “Davis” offerings: dining, shopping, movie theaters, events, art galleries, offices and residences. Yet, we aspire to be much more, and the Third/Fourth/E/F retail and parking redevelopment project will help us get there by:

* Providing 12,000 square feet of high-quality retail space necessary for critical mass for our downtown retail sector;

*Adding another aesthetically pleasing and sustainable structure to the downtown, complementing the charming and eclectic design landscape of the commercial core;

* Spurring further development within the vicinity of Third/Fourth/E/F streets as did the cinema/parking project at First and F streets and the multi-use/parking project at Fourth and G streets;

* Providing parking and charging stations for electric vehicles;

* Offering flexibility for reducing the number of on-street parking spaces to accommodate more dining, pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure (replacing on-street parking spaces with extended sidewalks for outdoor dining, for example);

* Enhancing the downtown pedestrian experience by reducing circulation of cars seeking on-street parking spaces;

* Providing parking supply for future downtown visitors at large conferences and lengthy events, where guaranteed parking is a necessity;

* Creating way-finding and accessible parking options for commuters to the commercial core; and

* Addressing a variety of parking needs for a broad range of downtown frequenters.

We are confident the Third/Fourth/E/F retail and parking redevelopment project will contribute to the development of downtown as a vibrant, accessible, pedestrian and bicycle-friendly, mixed-use urban center and innovation district.

We have the resources, know-how, ability and support — as demonstrated at our Aug. 24 brown-bag discussion, where the overwhelming majority of the more than 60 attendees (community residents, landlords and business owners) openly discussed and verbally backed the project.

Let’s do it — go downtown!

— Michael Bisch and Rosalie Paine are co-presidents of the board of the 750-member Davis Downtown Business Association

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