AUBURN — Al Manoian has an ambitious summer planned for the city’s downtown — full of symposiums, sidewalk cafes, brainstorming sessions and slower traffic.

The result will be a more vital downtown that’s ready for retail, small business and urban life, Manoian, Auburn’s economic development specialist, said.

“Maine’s economy is coming back, and over the next 10 years Maine will experience growth,” he said. “But, all that growth will only occur in the metropolitan areas of Maine — those cities that have equipped and formatted themselves. That’s where all that growth, the escalation of value, the gravitational pull of young people and new companies, will be. It will come only to those cities that are prepared.”

He plans to formally kick off his action plan at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 13, at the Auburn Public Library with a slide-show tour of the downtown.

“My fear, and I’m going say this especially that night, if we don’t start immediately, we won’t be ready,” Manoian said. “We don’t even have a team on the field, so we better get ready now.”

As an added bonus, the circa 1915 bells removed from New Auburn’s St. Louis Church last year will be on display at the library during the presentation. The city is launching a Kickstarter campaign to buy the bells and keep them in Auburn.

“We want to create a new heritage monument somewhere in New Auburn and have those bells as a part of it,” Manoian said.

Auburn’s downtown, especially Court Street, is much less a destination than a way to get somewhere else. Cars speed down the street’s four lanes on the way home, or to dinner, or shopping or work.

That comes from specific decisions the city made in the 1950s to streamline traffic through the downtown, at the expense of small businesses and downtown life.

The result is a street with a little foot traffic. 

“All the businessmen in downtown Auburn said, at that time, that this would obliterate retailing in downtown Auburn if we did this,” Manoian said. “They knew this at the time, but the traffic engineers said it was the future. So this is what we did, and we can see the result.”

At the Feb. 13 discussion Manoian plans to detail eight programs designed to turn that around. They range from slowing Court Street traffic by enforcing speed limits and bringing back on-street parking to meeting with downtown business owners to get their ideas.

“Every downtown I’ve been a part of has had a downtown neighborhood association, but this one doesn’t,” he said. “That needs to change.”

He hopes to revamp the city’s building and site-control philosophy, changing zoning codes that isolate buildings from their neighbors to codes that create districts that work together.

He also hopes to build interest along the streets, giving drivers and passers-by a reason to stop and look. That involves bringing Auburn restaurants and entertainment to Court Street every Thursday night this summer. He plans to create a sidewalk cafe in front of Auburn Hall from Mechanics Row to Main Street, hoping the weekly celebrations will spread to other parts of the downtown.

Another idea is to create a studio space along Court Street that will host four to six idea sessions each week this summer.

“We’d encourage people to come up and talk about the issues, to talk about what interests them,” Manoian said. “I really want to encourage unique discussions and off-the-wall ideas.”

It would culminate in a March or April three-day symposium on urban lifestyles. He hopes to bring in national and regional experts on economics, design and tourism to discuss reasons to develop a downtown and ways to make it happen.

“We are really going to be hitting our stride this spring, and we want the world to know that we are transforming this place in a deep, fundamental way,” he said. “It’s not just window dressing.”

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Big Plans for Downtown Auburn

Al Manoian’s eight ideas for bringing new life to the area

1. Monthly downtown connective sessions for downtown business owners, workers and residents to talk about issues that interest and concern them.

2. Street movement design group consisting of city officials and local business owners to discuss ways to turn the Court Street corridor into a more pedestrian friendly, visually interesting area.

3. Form based codes will replace typical zoning in downtown area and New Auburn. Instead of concerning themselves with designs for individual properties, form based codes look to create a district wide look and feel for buildings.

4. X Studio, an experimental gallery-like store front on Court Street where people will gather to discuss downtown and other issues four to six times each week, should begin this spring.

5. Sidewalks Alive!, a Thursday night program bringing Auburn restaurants and entertainment to the Court Street sidewalk in front of Auburn Hall each week from Memorial Day to Labor Day.

6. Replacing Downtown “intersections” with “squares and places” to remind residents of the area’s history and draw some interest to them.  For example, the Court Street/Turner Street/Mechanics Row intersection was once known as Court Square.

7. A Heritage Sculpture Garden in the park between Main Street and Great Falls School should bring the city’s sculpture of Edward Little back downtown. That sculpture is now featured outside of the Auburn high school that bears his name.

8. A New Urban Lifestyle Symposium will be scheduled for the spring. It should bring urban planners and theorists to the city for three days of discussion.