Community
Downtown Revitalization Efforts

In 2019 a commitment was made to look at the core of the community and find ways to strengthen and improve it through a variety of ways. Communities all across the state and nation have faced similar challenges that Bellbrook has. Many stores and businesses have cropped up outside the borders of communities for the last several decades. This change in development and retail has directly affected many downtown communities including our own. 

The City has worked to connect with businesses and residents alike to understand the needs of the community and create a plan. As a result, updates have been made to the zoning code, new events have been created, groups have formed and a renewed focus on the downtown has really taken shape. 

The City is devoted to working with residents, business owners and community organizations to continue find ways to renew our downtown. This page will be devoted to updating the community on that process.

2021 Downtown Streetscape Plan 

At the beginning of 2021 City Council developed the "2021 City Goals". One of those goals was "streetscape design and implementation". The Community Affairs Committee of Council was tasked with this goal. 

The City Manager developed a request for proposals for firms to respond to which outlined their approach and fees for developing such a plan. The City received eight responses. Community Affairs Committee and the City Manager reviewed the responses and made a recommendation to City Council at their April 12, 2021 meeting. City Council chose to contract with Kleingers Group to create the downtown streetscape plan. 

The plan will build upon the goals of the comprehensive plan and include recommendations for improvements which include enhanced walkability, community branding and signage, landscaping, and pedestrian level lighting. 

The plan will take six months to complete and the final plan will be presented to City Council and also posted here. 

There will be opportunities for public input so please follow this page for more details! 

Kleinger's Group Information
2019 Downtown Assessment and Recommendations

Downtown Assessment
In 2019 the City hired consultant Jeff Siegler to conduct an assessment occurred over two days, June 13-14, 2019.  The purpose was to look at our downtown and make recommendations to City officials as to how to best move forward in making improvements.

There was a community presentation and forum which was very well attended by members of the community. 

On the morning of June 14 there were two different meetings held for interested community members. The first was for community partners who are individuals that have a general interest in the efforts downtown. The second was geared more toward the business community and property owners. There were approximately 50 in attendance total at both meetings.

 

Recommendations
The consultant returned on July 18, 2019 to present his recommendations. There were 3 public meetings. The first was for community members interested in volunteering with our efforts moving forward.

Then Council and all boards met with the consultant to discuss the recommendations. And finally, there was a community presentation in the cafetorium of Bellbrook Middle School at 7pm which was also well attended.  

Recommendation Documents
Summary
REcommendations