Dear Councilpersons,

I wanted to take a few moments to share with you my feelings about the Calhoun St. Project. I wrote a letter to the editor about the topic some months ago. I am kind of a “stakeholder” in the downtown area. I live with my wife and two children in Midtowne Crossing. I own Worthington Manor, Westberry Apartments, Garrison Flats, Jackson Manor, Downtown Pizza and Ice Cream and Midtowne Realty.

I love downtown and am heavily invested in it. I am a Tincaps Season ticket holder as well, and have used those tickets to bring alot of people downtown who maybe would not have done so without it. I am fairly qualified to give an informed opinion, I think.

Anyway, please be informed that I think the proposal to widen Calhoun is ill-timed. We are making alot of progress with new people coming downtown, and people coming to events and such, but the construction project itself will be an interruption at a time when people are at a construction overload and are maybe just realizing what we have downtown for the first time. The block of Calhoun that contains the Dash-in and Summit Square is the heart of the downtown and now is not the time to fool around with it. Just let things go for a while. To be honest, I am afraid the construction would threaten the Dash-In, the most vibrant daytime destination that is not related to corrections. People love the street, the planters, etc. It’s just not the time to do it. That’s my opinion.

I won’t even address the traffic question which is dubious and I objected to taking Harrison Street away anyway, but I lost that one.

It’s not a bad time to save a million bucks either. I know it doesn’t work this way, but if you want to help downtown….GET US A GROCERY STORE ! That is the next step. We need a market we can walk or ride our bikes to. I think planning would do the whole city well to address this problem and let Calhoun simmer for a while.

I thank each of you for your service and your attention to my concern.

Eric Fisher
Fort Wayne

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 4th, 2009 at 2:06 pm and is filed under City & County Government. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.