MINNEAPOLIS — Over the course of the last year downtown Minneapolis has seen some come.
"Living downtown has been great," said Amelia Tenant.
And seen some go.
"I moved recently just to get out of this area," said Derek Bertelsend
It’s the latter group that several downtown stakeholders are looking to win over.
'A New 6-1-2' is the downtown reanimation initiative leaders from the downtown council and Meet Minneapolis are launching to bring people back to the area between now and Labor Day.
They plan to step up outreach through social media campaigns and marketing, while bringing back some of those favorite downtown past times like the farmers markets, live music events and festivals.
"I think it's going to be critical if downtown is going to survive what just happened. There’s so many companies that have essentially just sent everybody home and getting people to come back has been a great deal of resistance," said Jim Kellison whose office is located in downtown Minneapolis.
"We’re already seeing signs that hotel occupancy, which this time last year was running less than 10% right now on the weekends, those occupancies are approaching 30%," said Melvin Tennant, President and CEO of Meet Minneapolis.
However, the biggest challenge for these stakeholders is addressing the perception of downtown when it comes to public safety.
"Perception is reality," said Leah Wong, Vice President of External Relations for the Downtown Council.
Since the start of the year there have been 107 violent crimes reported in the area compared to 117 last year.
"I think often when people here about Minneapolis they assume downtown," said Wong. She went on to say, "we have spent a lot time really breaking down statistics to help people understand whereabouts within the city things are happening so we can provide accurate information and hopefully tout an accurate story.”
Which is why leaders say a good portion of downtown’s future success will rely heavily on new experiences.
"We are really excited for more folks to come down and continue to experience downtown so that they can start to share what their experience was like, and that is what we think will really move us forward in just having people talk about their own personal experiences downtown," said Wong.