Creating Downtown Transformation through Project Management and Facilitation – Office of Economic Development Downtown is You Project
Photos by Boone Media
Services: Project Management, Community Engagement and Stakeholder Engagement, Facilitation, Cross Sector Partnership & Convening
Focus Areas: Economic Development, Public Sector
Staff: Marc, Theresa, Tsewone, Cat
With Downtown Seattle facing complex challenges post COVID-19 pandemic, including changes in work from home culture, struggling retail landscape and affordable housing crisis, the City sought to create an innovative plan for revitalizing the Downtown area. In order to create a more equitable and resilient Downtown economy, OED asked Kinetic West to project manage creating a plan for Downtown called the Downtown Activation Plan. The goal of this project was to support the Mayor's Office in creating a vision for the Future of Downtown Seattle, build the tactical 1-3 year plan for the City's role in downtown revitalization, and create a plan for community engagement campaign to launch the plan and inspire the community and other critical stakeholders to invest alongside the City in building the future of Downtown Seattle.
Kinetic West led the creation of the Downtown Activation Plan, a balanced approach to creating an equitable and resilient Downtown. In addition, we brought on and managed a key group of partners including BCG, A–B (previously Avalanche Insights) and the Milli Agency.
BCG did baseline analytical analysis on the current state of Downtown and developed case studies based on other cities
A–B did large scale public polling of Seattleites to understand their feelings on Downtown Seattle
Milli Agency created a brand identify and built a public facing website to share the plan with the public
Using the findings from the data, our team worked with City Departments to develop recommendations.
Our team played multiple roles alongside overall project and partner management including facilitation, research, and community engagement.
Established and facilitate a Steering Committee of over 8 City Departments including the Director and Deputy Director from each department
Engaged over 60 partner organizations In the lead up to the launch of the Downtown Activation Plan
Built and tracked a list of strategic short- and long-term actions the City could take, including understand budget implications and potential impacts
Held three neighborhood listening sessions in Downtown neighborhoods (Belltown, Chinatown-International District, Pioneer Square) engaging over 110 people
Ultimately, we pulled together the final report and created a dynamic website outlining a strategic plan with near-term goals and strategies and transformational thinking for the future. Kinetic West is proud to have partnered with the Seattle Office of Economic Development and our many partners to complete this project and support the revitalization of Seattle’s Downtown. We believe that our ability to project manage complex planning efforts to engage in community-focused regional planning is broadly applicable to projects that require coordination and community input.