Development in Akron’s downtown has started to pick up, with more people moving into the city center and more deals being made to rehabilitate existing buildings. But there’s still a lot to do to shepherd leaders’ economic development visions, and community partners hope the creation of a new downtown development corporation will be the key to getting it done.
Akron leaders announced Thursday that they had raised $360,000 for each of the next three years from 17 partners to start the Downtown Akron Development Corp. and hire an executive director. The funding will pay for the executive director’s salary and benefits as well as leave some money for the organization to hold events to connect developers or do pre-development work.
On top of that, Kyle Kutuchief, the program director in Akron for the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, announced that his organization would contribute an additional $1.5 million over three years if the new executive director could raise $3 million to match it two-to-one. That money, he said, was to “get stuff done.”…