The East Lansing Downtown Development Authority has an executive director for the first time since it was created in 1986.
Before assuming her new role, Marcia Gebarowski worked for a regional economic development organization known as Ann Arbor SPARK, where she led initiatives in Livingston County.
Gebarowski says before the DDA decided to hire an executive director, its various projects — which range from new business development to downtown beautification — were handled by a variety of city staffers. She says that will no longer be the case.
“My position will take a lot of those projects off of city staff as the rest of the city has the attention that it needs,” Gebarowski said. She says the addition of an executive director will make it easier for residents and businesses to interact with the DDA.
“It’ll just be a single point of contact now,” she said. “I have the ability to work with our [Department of Public Works], with our planning and community economic development, our arts and other departments within the city.”
In preparing for her new role, Gebarowski said she has been studying the ways both year-round residents and Michigan State University students use downtown East Lansing.
“I was actually quizzing a lot of city leadership, how the daytime population is year-round, just trying to get an idea of how much our downtown works and functions serving students versus residents and others, you know, daytime population — the daytime workers,” she said.
She says she plans to use that knowledge to make sure future developments benefit everyone in the city.
Produced with assistance from the Public Media Journalists Association Editor Corps funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a private corporation funded by the American people.