Keep Rt. 161 Beautiful

Minutes - July 26, 2000

Meeting Minutes

Location: Outback Steakhouse – Rt. 161

Attendees: Dave Cooper/Ink Well, Steve Thompson/NCC, Rolla Wagner/NCC, George Schmidt/FPCA, Lisa Pfarr/AAA & Brian Kirk/Kirk’s Landscaping.

1. We discussed “Roadside Rainbow”. To qualify for the State each group must clean up a 1-mile stretch of road at least four times a year. We figured this would be a good supplement to the other efforts. We would need to communicate with the grass cutters and box caretakers. Big Bear is ready to go on this. NCC will do a stretch. We are looking for more organizations to be “Roadside Rainbows”. Northland Kiwanis is thinking about it.
2. We need to get more businesses involved in running this effort. This is only one of many projects that Northland Community Council (NCC) and Forest Park Civic Association (FPCA) is involved in. We had hoped that by this time the businesses along Rt. 161 would have assumed leadership. We will concentrate our efforts on finding those leaders. We will personally contact the business owners and recruit them. This group knows how to run things and have the most at stake.
3. George reported that the city told him some time ago that they would throw down some grass seed in the winter and weed killer in the spring if we got this project going. He will contact them to this end.
4. Some of the businesses along Rt. 161 are upset that it sometimes takes so long for the clean up after an accident. Steve will get the name and number of the person to call and we will look into it.
5. There are suddenly a lot of vacancies in the Beechcroft Shopping Center. We need to discuss ways to help fill the empty storefronts. Empty fronts help no one. We discussed Northland Plaza and wondered how George Hadler is doing with finding a tenant. The closing of the Famous Footwear store at Northland Plaza saddened us.
6. We now have a total of over 200 business addresses in our database for the mailing list.
7. George is putting an ad in Forest Park Civic Association’s newsletter – “The Forester” to support the businesses that help with Rt, 161. He will bring copies to the next meeting for us to share with businesses about how we can advertise for them.
8. It was suggested that we consider extending the Keep Rt. 161 project further west to the NCC boundary at Sinclair Road/Huntley Road. The Truman Club Hotel has worked with us in the past (we had our kick-off meeting there in May, 2000) and would be a good business to contact for that portion.
9. Each one of us is going to contact 4-5 businesses and invite them to the next meeting. We need to get personnel involved with this project.
10. We discussed getting some organizations involved like the Northland Kiwanis and Northland Jaycees and other service organizations.
11. This is our best shot at maintaining Rt. 161. All the boxes have volunteers to maintain and plant. By the summer of 2001 the boxes should look great! NCC is going to give $100.00 per box to buy flowers from its Columbus Foundations grant money. The residents are donating their time. In addition, Kirk’s Landscaping is taking care of 4 boxes.
12. The next meeting will be held at the McDonalds Restaurant/Rt. 161 on August 30 at 7:30a.m.

We will be discussing the formation of a redevelopment corporation for the Northland area. Which is tentatively called the Northland Redevelopment Corporation. This group will plan for the Northland area including a Special Improvement District (S.I.D.) for Rt. 161. Dick Jacobs, owner of the Northland Mall, is going to donate $100,000 to get this project off the ground.
We will also be finalizing the draft for our grant requests for the larger companies along Rt. 161 and discussing a mission statement that has some real punch!