Ben Rice, left, and Cameron Plew, right, put sticker dots on statements regarding downtown Warsaw that they agree with Wednesday afternoon at Main Street Warsaw’s Community Open House at The Vic. Photo by David Slone, Times-Union.

By David Slone
Times-Union

WARSAW — Dozens of people took part in the Community Open House at The Vic in Warsaw Wednesday evening, Aug. 14, to review and give feedback on concepts and ideas about the future of the downtown.

Main Street Warsaw Executive Director Rob Parker said, “What we tried to do at Main Street is, we convened our board today for a strategic planning session, and from that strategic planning session, we put on the wall ideas and concepts that we want to provide for our downtown stakeholders.”

The stakeholders include business owners, property owners, the city, the county and all the residents who visit the downtown.

“The point of that is to have our downtown and all our businesses come out and go around and look at the things that were proposed and put their (sticker) dots – vote, basically – for what they like most about these plans,” Parker said.

The posters and banners on the wall of The Vic start with what the downtown is, how it generates revenues and how important the downtown is to the community. As it goes around the walls, it has the results of a survey as to what’s need and what Main Street is. The end is all “tactical” information such as could the annual Halloween party be bigger, could downtown Warsaw be decorated for holidays more, etc. so more people would be drawn to the downtown.

Terry Sweeney, Main Street Warsaw downtown development director, said, “I’m new to the position, and as a board, when I first came on, we decided to expand the board to include more of the downtown stakeholders who represent the core of the downtown experience.”

The new team is tasked with implementing the Hyett Palma plan, and also create an organizational plan, he said.

On May 15, 2023, a community meeting about the downtown took place as part of the study with consultants Doyle Hyett and Dolores Palma gathering information from the public. They also toured the city and met with stakeholders that week. The plan was the result. A Hyett Palma study was first done with the city in about 2001.

Sweeney said the board took part in a retreat Wednesday.

“What’s interesting about that is our committees really have been working the last 60 days to kind of create these thoughts, and today we, by committee, presented those thoughts to the entire board. And then, we invited the public to come look at what we’re proposing so that we can get feedback from our customers,” he said.

The information they glean from Wednesday’s Community Open House will be put into a more strategic plan as a guide to move forward for the next seven years.

There was a lot of enthusiasm and passion during the board retreat, Sweeney said.

“Everyone was like, ‘Yeah, let’s go do that!’ And I would say that the energy you see in there (The Vic) is the experience that the energy was with the board, that they were excited with the path they had charted and where we think we’re going to head. What better time could you be doing this type of stuff in Warsaw than right now with all the stuff going on?” Sweeney said.

He said the board will not only work to implement the ideas, but also identify resources to make them a reality.

“I’m excited. I think we have some consensus and some people willing to help in trying to do these things,” Sweeney said.

After a plan is developed, he said they will invite the public in to see again what is being proposed in a formal plan and move that forward.

Chris Wiggins said what he saw at the Community Open House was amazing.

“I think having this open forum to take ideas and already have the boards and advisory committees to put them out there for people to form their own opinions around is a great way to approach this,” he said.
Having lived in the community a long time, Wiggins said there’s buildings downtown that he didn’t realize had upstairs, auditorium and stage space.

“Having that pointed out is pretty cool,” he said.

With all the traction for a lot of great things that could happen, Wiggins said it’s a great time to live in Kosciusko County.

Warsaw Councilwoman Cindy Dobbins, who is a Main Street Warsaw board member, was thrilled that so many people from the community came out in support of the downtown and to give their input to downtown.

“I was really worried that nobody would show up, but it’s been overwhelming,” she said.

Dobbins said she thinks a lot of people are wanting more downtown events and more activities that will engage the entire family.