New downtown director aims to put focus on area

Goal is to promote the city, use the ideas citizens have for city.

Patrick Kay will head the new Downtown Middletown Inc. group. The organization's focus is promotion of the city's downtown area.

Staff photo by Gary Stelzer Patrick Kay will head the new Downtown Middletown Inc. group. The organization's focus is promotion of the city's downtown area.

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By Chelsey Levingston, Staff Writer 1:31 AM Sunday, January 8, 2012

MIDDLETOWN — A vibrant city core can make a whole city strong, said the new Downtown Middletown Inc. Director Patrick Kay.

Without a bustling downtown, Middletown is the same as every other exit on Interstate 75, with big box stores, hotels and franchise restaurants, Kay said.

“It makes Middletown unique,” Kay said. “What makes a town unique is its downtown.”

Kay is the new man in town in charge of attracting businesses and people to the city’s downtown area.

Downtown Middletown Inc. is the latest group of city stakeholders to form to promote Middletown’s city center. Kay’s position is the first paid job focused solely on organizing downtown activity, in the model of the Main Street USA program, paid for by grants.

Kay, 30, started Jan. 2. Previously, he was executive director of Brunswick Main Street in Maryland, a job he had for three years. That experience is part of why he was brought to Downtown Middletown because he will try to form a Main Street program here.

The first impressions Kay had of Middletown were the empty buildings, he said.

“The whole downtown is vacant,” he said.

But he’s been impressed by local commitment to the Central Avenue and Main Street corridors.

“They really want the downtown to be successful. I think they get it,” he said.

Originally Kay is from Anderson, S.C. Before he went to Brunswick, he worked as chair of the economic restructuring committee of The Main Street Program, Anderson and co-owned a company with his father that developed historic buildings.

The avid traveler believes in community involvement and said he would have made a run for Anderson City Council if he didn’t get involved in Main Street USA.

“I love public policy, I love being involved in the community,” he said. “Main Street, it’s exactly what I wanted to do.”

Middletown, which has a population of approximately 49,000 people, is significantly larger than Brunswick, which has a population of about 6,000.

That presents more opportunities, as well as greater challenges, Kay said. The good thing about vacant property is it’s a clean slate, he said.

The city’s assets include its parks and architecture, he added.

“You just need a group to pull it all together,” he said.

But don’t expect him to be Middletown’s saving grace. He said he’s not going to come up with a plan and tell Middletonians to follow it. He sees his job as applying his ideas to execute the residents’ vision of downtown.

Currently, Kay is laying the groundwork, conducting market research and forming committees on economic restructuring, design, organization and promotion. He wants to come up with a selling point for the city’s downtown.

“It’s not going to turn around tomorrow,” he said.

For more information, email downtownmiddletown@gmail.com.

Contact this reporter at (513) 705-2551 or clevingston@coxohio.com.