Meeting to discuss future of downtown Sidney

The city wants downtown businesses owners to know they’re not being ignored.

“We’ve had some comments from some of the business people who are in the construction area asking that we have some kind of a meeting among business owners, managers down in the general downtown area,” said City Manager Gary Person at last week’s city council meeting.

In answer to these requests the Historic Downtown Sidney Main Street program will hold a downtown forum at Sam and Louie’s at 8 a.m. on July 23.

“The Forum will highlight efforts that have been undertaken to revitalize Sidney’s downtown corridor as well as discussions of future plans for the Hickory Street Square and downtown district,” said Sidney’s Main Street Director Megan McGown in a press statement.

The city will inform those in attendance about project progress on 10th Ave., in addition to information about the underground electrical conversion. City officials will be present to educate business owners about incentive programs and to talk about infrastructure issues as well.

“There’s always the quick comment, ‘Well, what have you done for downtown?’ Well, we’ve done a lot of things for downtown, but you can’t just say it in a broad, general statement you know, we’d like to put some specifics together,” Person said.

The city did not have much luck in attracting business owners when it held meetings to talk about the 10th Ave. street project before work began, but hopes that business owners decide to attend this meeting. Sidney invites all those with interests in downtown to attend the event including business owners, building owners and residents.

“We highly, highly encourage them to be there, because that’s the way that we can all hear the same thing,” Person said.

Anyone with questions about the forum can call McGown at 254-8455.