Riverside is such a beautiful village that it has been a complete shame the same attention lavished on private property has not been lavished on its small downtown business district.
Apart from the fact that the downtown has been a construction zone for the past couple of years, which is not the issue here, the visual appearance of the downtown has been underwhelming, especially when it comes to its many flower beds.
Except for the parkway planters in front of Grumpy’s at the corner of Riverside Road and East Quincy Street, the dozen or so beds up and down the Longcommon/Riverside main drag have looked more like dirt-and-scraggly-bush beds, forlorn plantings in a village with a national designation for its landscape architecture.
The reasons for this are many with deep roots. Turf battles over dirt patches. Old grudges.
All it took was for everybody with a stake in the issue of downtown plantings to take a step back and realize that all had a role to play and that those roles had to be played as a team.
What Riverside has been unable to do in a decade looks to have been accomplished in the span of three months. Next week, the Riverside village board will vote on whether to accept a plan for downtown plantings recommended to them by the Landscape Advisory Commission.
Anyone voting against this ought to be conked on the head with a coneflower.
Following on the heels of a TIF debate that tore the village apart-and involving some of the same people-this plan was pure collaboration on the part of the village, the LAC and the Olmsted Society.
The village put up $25,000 to pay for plantings and maintenance, the LAC drove the planning process and the Olmsted Society came through with critical private funding for a landscape architect to make the LAC’s plan something that could be implemented and expanded in the future.
This had nothing to do with any one group having to sacrifice its principles. It had to do with looking at what was best for Riverside and working to reinforce those core principles while respecting those of others involved.
Funny how things get accomplished when no one wants to bulldoze the process.
In the summer of 2009, Riverside is slated to finish its renovation of Centennial Park. With the Village Center complete, with the Longcommon/Riverside plantings in place, with the library’s new landscaping completed, with additional landscaping completed on Burlington Street, with the Arcade Building renovation complete-Riverside’s downtown should look as good as it has in decades.
The next step: finding consensus on economic development. Not an easy discussion but, then again, neither was the subject of flowers in the parkway.