The team at the Downtown and Community Revitalization Department is working proactively to ensure the steady revitalization of Downtown Fresno over the next several years.

This website is not about Downtown Fresno; it’s about the nuts and bolts of the City’s downtown revitalization efforts. If you live Downtown, you work there, or you’re thinking about visiting or investing, please visit www.downtownfresno.org for comprehensive, up-to-the-minute information about all that Downtown Fresno has to offer, including news and an events calendar, a dining guide, and a parking guide.

Mayor's State of Downtown Presentation
1/26/10...click here

Animation Slide of State of Downtown Presentation 1/26/10...click here

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Defining Our Goals

The Department’s revitalization efforts are founded on the best practices of hundreds of cities across the nation and around the world — cities that, in many cases, have overcome seemingly overwhelming economic obstacles to bring new life to their historic urban cores. The Department’s work reflects three main short- and long-term objectives.

Goal 1: Foot Traffic
With enough excitement happening to draw people downtown on a consistent basis, nothing else really matters. But the attraction must be there. The Downtown and Community Revitalization Department is helping create new events that attract people to Downtown Fresno on a consistent, weekly basis, while celebrating our cultural diversity and Valley heritage. You can help! Find out more here.

Goal 2: Sustainable Funding and Management
An engaged private sector is key to Downtown revitalization, and property owners in nearly 100 cities in California have come together to create a “Property and Business Improvement District,” or PBID. Under a PBID, property owners assess themselves for improved services which they choose and control. By working together, property owners can also begin to speak with a unified voice, helping advocate for further community investment in the downtown. A PBID is in the process of forming in Downtown Fresno. Find out more here.

Goal 3: Great Planning and Design
To support revitalization, downtown development must encourage things like foot traffic, historic preservation, mixed uses, and nightlife. In Fresno, many of our downtown development laws provide unclear requirements for development or, in some ways, can even work against revitalization goals. A new, legally binding “Specific Plan” is being created to guide land use in Downtown Fresno. Find out more here.

Goal 4: Investment and Development
Private investment and development are telltale signs of a healthy downtown — and an important goal in themselves. While other revitalization strategies are underway, the City wants to immediately remove unnecessary obstacles to development, and promote incentives to invest in downtown projects that bring life to underused land and buildings. Find out more here.

Measuring Our Success

Subjectively, it’s easy to tell a vital urban area from a dormant one. You can see the difference in the smiles of pedestrians, feel it in the instinctive sense of safety when walking at night, and hear it in the way people in the community talk about their downtown.

Objectively, several criteria can help indicate whether revitalization is taking hold. Our Department’s success will be measured by trends in the data below. Check back at this site as we establish benchmark data and track changes over time.

Observable                               Revitalization trend
Foot traffic                                              Up
Business licensing activity                       Up
Building permits issued                           Up
Sales taxes paid                                     Up
Property values                                       Up
Crime rates                                           Down

Contact Us

For more information about the Downtown and Community Revitalization Department and our downtown efforts, contact:

Elliott Balch
Downtown Revitalization Manager
2600 Fresno Street, Room 2156
Fresno, CA 93721
(559) 621-8350
Elliott.Balch@fresno.gov

Revitalization is fun! Stay up-to-date on our activities and ways you can help by subscribing to our Department newsletter. Among other news, you’ll receive postings for our Downtown Revitalization Update Meeting (DRUM), a lively, informal, after-hours, community-led dialogue held at a different Downtown restaurant each quarter.