Northfield Downtown Development Corporation

The NDDC hosted a stakeholder input gathering session Wednesday night at the Upstairs Rueb. The purpose of the session was to give the NDDC’s representative to the Mayor’s Ad Hoc Task Force, Joe Grundhoefer, ideas to bring to the table for discussion and, hopefully, implementation.

The session was professionally facilitated by Charles Skinner of Fit Organizations. Charley warned us ahead of time that we were trying to do eight hours of work in a two hour session.

Dan Bergeson, NDDC President, encouraged us to think beyond 2005’s Streetscape Plan and to plan long-term for the over $2 million of downtown investment over the next ten years. Charley Skinner suggested that we think in time-frames of 2 years, 10 years and 20 years in our brain-storming.

NDDC Board Member Keith Covey, said that two local people, Jim Bohnhoff, a design professional, and Spencer Jones, a landscape architect, are subcontracted by Dahlgren, Shardlow, and Uban for some of this work, and, as residents of Northfield, will bring a long-term and big-picture perspective to their work.

(See more photos in the N.org photo album of the event.)

The two dozen or so participants generated over 400 post-it note ideas. Keith Covey is working away at this very moment to put these ideas into a single Word document to be posted on this site.

A group of National Honor Society Students from Northfield High School performed some much-appreciated volunteer work in the community Saturday afternoon. They picked up trash and garbage from the sidewalks in downtown.

Pictured from left to right are Sarah Goldfeather, Athena Currier, Peter Holt and Casey Davis-Van Atta.

The students reported that for most part, things were pretty tidy in downtown Northfield. They did notice that certain businesses had dozens of cigarette butts in front of their entrances. Those businesses will remain anonymous.

These Honor Society Students got a jump on the rest of the folks in Northfield with the Downtown Spring Cleaning. We will get our chance on the Community Day of Service, scheduled for Saturday, April 30th.

The Northfield Downtown Development Corporation (NDDC) will host an input-gathering forum from 7 to 9 pm on Wednesday, April 13th, at the Upstairs Rueb.

Mayor Lansing has asked for a representative from the NDDC to serve on an Ad Hoc Task Force on the Downtown Improvement Process. Joe Grundhoefer, owner of J. Grundy’s/Rueb-N-Stein and Vice President of the NDDC Board of Directors, has been designated as the NDDC representative to the Task Force.

The NDDC seeks to hear the ideas and priorities from downtown stakeholders, both businesses and citizens, to raise and advocate for at the task force meetings. All are invited to participate.

Pump-priming ideas (and images) will include Pedestrian Friendliness, Outside Dining, Building Backsides, River Access, Alley Beautification, and Parking Adequatification.

On Tuesday, April 5, adult and youth representatives of The Northfield Union of Youth will tell us about The Key - a downtown youth center that offers recreation, social and business opportunities to middle- and high-school students — at our monthly NDDC Downtown Forum.

The meeting will be held from 8 to 9:30 a.m. in the Riverview Conference Room (lower level) of the Archer House at Third and Division streets. Coffee and a light snack will be served.

Students Kevin Brown, Kendall Clements, Spencer Foote, Sarah Lee, Chris Murkina and Riahl O’Malley are scheduled to speak. Also appearing will be Executive Director Anne Kroes, Americorps volunteer Josh Hinnenkamp and two members of the adult advisory board: Kiffi Summa and Peter Guthrie.

We’re excited to hear about the programs offered at The Key and we’re sure that you are too. Please bring your questions along with you.