dlyon  Jan 7 2005 - 8:24am  Local News   

By MATTHEW L. BROWN
Chronicle Staff Writer
WILLIMANTIC — The downtown advisory committee wants the current residents of the Hotel Hooker to be moved out to make way for private development.
Current residents of the Hotel Hooker, which has also been known recently as Windham House and the Seth Chauncey Hotel for Seth Chauncey Hooker, should be moved out, the committee recommended in its final report.
“Needed housing can be provided by relocating existing residents of the Windham House … into other housing in the community,” the committee concluded.
Other housing would have to be built or rehabilitated, but once that’s done, the committee concludes, residents of the Hotel Hooker could be moved out to make way for a private developer.
Other than that, there is nothing new in the downtown advisory committee’s final report, according to its chairman, but it’s up to the town to follow through with recommendations for downtown revitalization.
Mary Lou DeVivo, the committee’s chairman, said she and other committee members plan to attend the board of selectmen’s Jan. 18 meeting to answer questions about the report.
The final report is entitled “A Sense of Direction for the Development of the Downtown Area” and is dated Dec. 28. Copies of the report were supplied to selectmen Tuesday.
“It’s a guideline for the future, we’re just making some suggestions,” DeVivo said Thursday.
The committee made several familiar recommendations like the development of Main Street as a tourism/arts and entertainment district.
The committee also suggested Main Street be developed with a mix of commercial and residential uses.
These ideas are not new.
The downtown advisory committee recognized that to make its report any different from several similar reports drafted over the years by various public and private agencies, the town would have to be prodded into action.
“Too often,” the report concludes, “once the originating entity is disbanded, recommendations become difficult to implement without an entity specifically focused on implementation.
“As such, we recommend that an implementation oversight entity (i.e. a continuation of the DAC or a successor organization) be created to remain focused on downtown development in a direction consistent with the community’s goals.”
“The committee felt there should be another committee formed to keep track of it,” DeVivo said.
It’ll be up to the town, however, “to decide how they want to move forward,” DeVivo said.