Downtown Stakeholders Forum

Meeting Purpose

The Downtown Stakeholders Forum is a place for anyone with a connection to downtown Vancouver to collaborate with residents, business owners and City and local agency staff on community-driven projects to enhance downtown Vancouver's atmosphere, community engagement, marketing and vitality. The forum was created through a partnership between Vancouver's Downtown Association and the City of Vancouver.

In 2025, the recurring forum will be in person from 1:00 pm to 2:30 pm on the third Tuesday - alternating months - starting in February. See below for details.

2025 Meeting Format and Scheduling

In-Person Meeting Location

• City Hall - 415 W. 6th Street, Vancouver WA 98660
• Aspen Community Room - Ground Floor
• 1:00 PM to 2:30 PM PST

Meeting Dates & Format

• 2025 meeting dates: 2/18, 4/15, 8/19, 10/21 and 12/16 (6/17 cancelled)
  • Held on third Tuesday of alternating months, starting in February
  • Each meeting is now 1.5 hours long, often with two or more speakers
• In person meeting (virtual dial-in link is available if unable to attend)
  • See "Upcoming Meetings" for remote meeting access information
• Meetings are open to the public

2025 Downtown Priorities

Each year, the Downtown Stakeholders Forum collaborates with City of Vancouver and Vancouver’s Downtown Association staff to identify priorities for Downtown and designate a focus for the year. In the January Stakeholders Survey, participants identified the following priorities for 2025 (shown in order of highest priority):

1. Homelessness and Community/Public Safety
2. Community Conversations: strategies for handling rapid change in a growing city
3. I-5 Bridge Project
   
4. Main Street business assistance and mitigation efforts during Main Street Promise construction
5. Update on implementation of City's Downtown Parking Plan, shared in 2024
6. Crime and drugs
7. Updates on implementation of City's Economic Development Plan, shared in 2024
8. Business support, technical training, business resources
9. City actions that are reducing impact on environment
10. Disaster recovery loans and strategies for your business or building

View results of the 2025 Downtown Stakeholders Survey or you may view individual answers within the 2025 Downtown Stakeholders Survey

View results of the 2024 Downtown Stakeholders Survey

Main Street Promise Streetscape Project

The City of Vancouver is investing in making our downtown Main Street safer, more convenient and accessible for businesses, residents, and visitors by reconstructing the Main Street streetscape from 5^th to 15^th. A community-led effort, nearly 30 years in the making, the Main Street Promise builds upon planning work that began in 1993 with the goal of improving and invigorating the heart of Vancouver, and is now coming to fruition.

Construction for this exciting project started in January 2025 and is anticipated to be complete by Spring 2027. The project team will engage the community throughout all phases of the project, with project updates at these recurring meetings.

Downtown Market Study, by VDA

The VDA completed a downtown market study in 2023, made possible by a grant from the WA Main Street Program. The purpose of the study was to identify market opportunities, trends, community perceptions, prospects interested in opening a business downtown, and demographic / sociographic information. This community-wide outreach collected 835 survey responses, with these results.

Examples of Prior Projects

In 2019, VDA and the City worked with downtown stakeholders on improvements to the appearance of Downtown’s Main Street from 5th to 15 streets. The project is known as the “Main Street Appearance Project” (MSAP). This work builds on 2009 and 2015 studies that offered ideas to improve Main Street’s design and appearance within the public realm. Improvements include the 12^th & Main Artlet and 4-Way Stop, the Bike Art Park on Main and a Storefront Activation Team. Vancouver’s Downtown Association, the City, downtown stakeholders and numerous volunteers used time during the 2020 pandemic to safely implement the Artlet and bike art park projects along Downtown’s Main Street.

In 2018, the downtown stakeholders, the City and Vancouver’s Downtown Association implemented several improvements to make it easier for visitors to navigate the downtown area, easily find the new waterfront attractions, and highlight existing points of interest in the historic core and Uptown districts. Improvements included the 6th Street Gateway Sign, new downtown street banners, pedestrian and vehicular wayfinding signs, a downtown walking map and a downtown clean-up day.