All About The DID by Lisa Hummel Hanging flower baskets. The Trolley. Harrisburg Hello. Street Sweepers. All are a familiar sight in center city Harrisburg in recent months. And all can be attributed to the Harrisburg Downtown Improvement District Authority (DID), an organization envisioned by Mayor Stephen R. Reed and spearheaded by Executive Director Fred Clark and a Board of Directors. So what is the DID? It’s an organization founded with the intention of “enhancing the friendliness, beautification, safety, cleanliness, hospitality, and marketing of Downtown Harrisburg.” But more than merely making the downtown pretty, it’s efforts also make it quite an economic force, as with every event sponsored and every street cleaned the hope is that one more person is brought downtown and is so pleased with the experience that they will come again — to eat, shop, play, and, ultimately, live. In existence for just a year, the DID is a result of years of planning and brainstorming with local residents, businesses, and officials. The goal: to make downtown “a destination point for young people and companies trying to attract new business,” according to Clark. Created in large part by Mayor Reed and run in conjunction with the Harrisburg City Council, the Downtown Improvement District is separate from the city. It is not funded with city monies, nor does it draw from resident tax dollars. As Clark explained, the funding and the existence of the DID is “due to the efforts of downtown business persons and property owners.” Businesses are assessed a fee that is deposited into a fund and used by the DID. “I think all of the property owners are in agreement that it is a success and it is well worth the assessment that they impose on themselves. And that is a very important point that many people in the general public don’t understand,” said DID board member Mark Stewart. “The flower baskets and the street cleaning and the ambassadors who are there to give information and to help visitors and guests of downtown — many think that is being paid by the city and their tax dollars but its really not, its paid by the property owners.” A local attorney working in center city Harrisburg, Stewart was appointed to the DID Board as a representative of Dauphin County by Commissioners Lowman Henry, John Payne, and Anthony Petrucci. Faced with the task of looking at the Downtown Improvement District from a county perspective, Stewart is encouraged by the success of the DID initiatives on not only a local level, but a regional one and is appreciative of the fact that drawing interest to the downtown is drawing interest to Dauphin County, as well. “The city is the heart of the region and the County, it’s the metropolitan core. In many ways it serves as the catalyst for economic development and services that people and entities and businesses outside of the city utilize,” said Stewart. “A lot of people talk about the county vs. the city, but the city is actually in the county and certainly is part of the county and helps the county.” At the moment, the Downtown Improvement District is working only in center city Harrisburg, but with 10 new initiatives in the works — including banners, a lecture series, a town crier, city cinema and a welcome center, among others — Clark states that an additional DID may not be too far off. “We are in the process of creating a second DID which would be from Walnut Street to South Street and between Front Street and Third Street. That will hopefully, with the help of City Council, be in existence by January, 2002,” he said. In the future, Clark would like to see a number of satellite DIDs throughout the city, in the Market Street or North Sixth Street areas, even as far as the Third Street corridor, a move that would “complete the process of downtown” and turn the quaint shops and restaurants of Midtown into Harrisburg’s version of SoHo, the famous art-loving neighborhood in Manhattan. DID board member and Crowne Plaza General Manager Dave Sanderson echoes Clark’s notion that additional DID will be necessary in the very near future. “I think the best evidence of the Downtown Improvement District’s success is there were property owners on the northern side, outside the boundaries of the DID, who have come up and say, ‘hey, we want to do this,’” said Sanderson. “I remember being at a steering committee meeting and we said that would be the biggest validation of our success, if other people wanted to be involved.” For now, the goal of the Downtown Improvement District is to tend to the needs of the center city, encourage attendance at downtown events, and spur the downtown economy by promoting city attractions, restaurants, and retail shops — like those on Second Street’s Restaurant Row and the newly opened Shops on Third at Strawberry Square. “Because of the aggressive, bold vision of property owners and the Mayor many companies and many people are taking a second look at Harrisburg,” said Clark. “Now, instead of going to Philadelphia and Pittsburgh and New York and D.C. there are many people talking about coming to Harrisburg to live, to work, and to play.”