Just last week, Scranton Mayor Chris Doherty announced plans for a cobblestone walking path to be installed along Center Street. An estimated $600,000 worth of improvements has been proposed to transform the alley into "Center Street Plaza." Included in the budget for the eight-story parking garage adjacent to the new Hilton Hotel and Convention Center, the funds will pave the path, light it, landscape it and decorate its entrance ways with banners and seating areas.

The buildings along the alley allow for the development of street-level shops and with the pedestrian traffic the Hilton is expected to generate, it's not implausible to imagine entrepreneurs snatching up storefront space along the plaza. The project is scheduled for completion by late 2004.

It may take a little while longer than that to realize the renderings conjured by artist Hank Fells for the alley on the other side of Lackawanna, but artists at the AFA Gallery and property owners along Bogart Court are optimistic. The sketches envision a shopping strip out of Sorrento, Italy, and a greenspace above as a walking park with places to play.

"Just being able to visualize it has made all the difference," explained Youshock, who serves as AFA gallery coordinator. "People are seeing what it could look like and are getting excited and talking about it and one thing leads to the next. You have to start somewhere, so that was the impetus, really, just having the drawing."

"It's just a dream," she allows. "But you've got to start with a dream."

The biggest step concedes the executive director of Scranton Tomorrow might have already been taken in simply believing such a project could be achieved.

"Maybe (it's) even more symbolic than anything, that someone would actually people a pen to paper and draw this picture and say, 'Here's what it could be,'" Paul Colaiezzi proposed to e.c.

"Last year, or two years ago, I don't think that people would have even spent the time to make a drawing because the atmosphere just wasn't conducive."

The dream plans for Bogart Court grew out of a subcommittee of Scranton Tomorrow's Downtown Renaissance Project.

"There's a whole bunch of people that are looking to see what we can do to develop an artistic downtown and then bring in artists from New York and Philadelphia based on the quality of life here and the cost of living," Youshock reported. Both she and AFA-associated artist Ty Welles are members of the currently unnamed group which is chaired by cultural activist and long time Scranton Tomorrow board member Sally Bohlin and fortified by Colaiezzi. Musician Doug Smith and poet Jack McGuigan add their artistic perspective to the committee. Developer and property owner Ken Marquis and Scranton Office of Economic and Community Development staff member Fania Blackwell provide the committee with business sense.

Scranton Tomorrow's staff and volunteers, informed Colaiezzi, have been using what's called the "Main Street approach" to revitalizing a central business district in order to achieve the goals of their Downtown Renaissance Project. The method breaks down the admittedly huge task into smaller more specialized projects.

"There are a lot of sort of little initiatives, if you will, that if you put them all together equals renaissance of some sort," Colaiezzi explained. The invigoration of downtown Scranton via the vibrant energy artists are reputed to bring to a community is one of these initiatives. Loft apartments have been encouraged in order to entice people to not only make downtown Scranton a desirable place to visit but also to live.

"Young professionals want to have other young professionals living, working and playing in the downtown," said Colaiezzi, who feels that contemporary and stylish loft apartments will attract university students and young artists. Theories such as those presented by economist Richard Florida in The Rise of the Creative Class tout the role of a strong arts and cultural infrastructure in the economic health of cities support their work. A climate that supports creativity attracts the visionary thinkers and entrepreneurs that ensure a place with long-term longevity, so the theory goes.

AFA associated photographer Marcia Crane has already been enticed. She returned to the Northeast Pennsylvania after studying and living in Philadelphia primarily because she missed her family, but she has no regrets.

"All this happening now is like an affirmation ... I feel like I made the right decision to move back - as an artist," she proclaimed.

Bogart Court is only one downtown district that the subcommittee has visualized as hosting a cluster of art-related businesses, confirmed Youshock. She identified an area near the Laura Craig Gallery that wraps around to Linden Street from Penn Avenue as well as the stretch of Adams Avenue that could be anchored by the Diva Theater.

Their vision of Bogart Court begins with an entrance which extends upstairs from Lackawanna Avenue to the greenspace and downstairs into the alley. They see greenery flowing down the rear wall and maybe even a waterfall. There used to be shops along the alley, explained Youshock, that could be resurrected over time.

"There would be little tables out and they could have something to eat and listen to some music and you know, it would just be a beautiful ambiance," she shared.

The Steamtown National Historic Site owns the empty overgrown space that looms above the court.

"It looks out over the city and the sunset at night from there is fabulous," Youshock raved. Hank Fells describes the plot as a peninsula. The perimeter is fenced he said, because of the steep drop on all sides. Currently, the only way to access the space is at the far end of the parking lot behind the Radisson Hotel

"It's nice for a walk space," artist Ty Welles further described. "You could have a wandering trail with sculptures and gardens, all kinds of stuff."

"On the rendering I visualized a bandstand on the one end of it, the Steamtown Mall side" Fells elaborated. "I pictured a bandstand with some chairs and people and an area where they could give performances." One volunteer, suggested Youshock, proposed such a space be erected as a tribute to the late Jason Miller.

"Maybe we can make it like the Jason Miller park and have little theatrical productions there or readings," brainstormed Youshock. "A statue of him can be rendered by one of the artists. It's a great idea."

The National Park has barely been approached by the committee about the project, Youshock explains, but she is aware of a grant that might benefit both parties.

"They're trying to make access from upper Lackawanna Avenue to Steamtown, so we're trying to partner with them," she said.

"If you align yourself with a national park, those funds could be accessible to you. So we would like to see somehow connecting this space to Steamtown so people could flow from here to there and pull it all together."

Such aesthetic improvements aren't simply art for arts sake. Youshock told e.c. that the AFA Gallery's neighboring building owners are "all psyched." After all, the Bogart Court developments would make their properties more valuable.

"The billiard company next door here has been for sale for a while and now the owner is saying he's interested in developing it himself," Youshock asserted. "They never had a market before and now they're seeing the potential market. So this is what the buzz is."

Indeed one task of the Scranton Tomorrow committee that has entwined the talents and sensibilities of developers, artists, community activists, fund-raisers, and city representatives has been to market the possibilities of downtown Scranton. They plan to help spur growth and development by identifying unmade connections and then serve as a sort of matchmaker.

Members of the building committee, like Ty Welles, have walked through the city in search of buildings housing potential lofts waiting to happen. Many of the buildings for sale, lease or rent, explained Youshock, weren't listed with a realtor. The committee is willing to serve in any capacity needed from securing buyers for building owners who want to sell to providing attractive ideas for those who want to renovate. The latter option, suggests Youshock, is proving increasingly popular.

"It's turning out that the people who are already owning buildings are the ones that want to (renovate)," she told e.c. "It's very exciting and there's a lot of new building purchases going on in town."

"There is a feeling that buildings are becoming more valuable, worth more money and even worth more money to keep them and restore them than it might be to sell them out right," Colaiezzi proposed. He has no specific financial figures to back up such a hunch, he said, but feels that the positive signs people have waited for have finally appeared.

"We're talking to these people and saying, 'It could be loft apartments, it could be something else. It could be a gallery. It could be part of this bigger plan,' not knowing if that will ever be a reality or not. But at least we know that there are people out there who are committed to seeing the central business district come back as big and as great as it can be," Scranton Tomorrow's executive director said.

William Marchington confirmed that the surge in positive activity afflicting the city was partially behind his recent decision to buy property. The owner of Marchington, Inc., which trades as The Heating People and Trapper Plumbing, he has owned the building at 518 Lackawanna Avenue since 1989. He just purchased the building at 516 in April.

"It was like we were in a quagmire for 20 years. And with this new mayor and stuff like that and the people who are in OECD, things are starting to happen," he told e.c. He feels there is definitely a market for loft apartments. His two apartments on the upper floors of 518 have been consistently occupied for the last five years. The building at 516 is structurally sound, he noted, but will require certain modernization in order to ensure "creature comforts." He doesn't mind having to do such renovations. He sees them as an inevitable adaptation accompanying the changes in the city.

"The whole scenario with Scranton seems to be catering more toward the younger people now and in order for that to continue you are going to have to change the way the place looks, the way it acts," the businessman stated.

"Long distance thinking is that for any business we run as a service business with heavy equipment and stuff like that, the rent will probably be too high for us to exist down here," Marchington continued. "It's going to end up being apartments upstairs and probably service industries on the second floor and retail on the first. And then of course if the basements can be used out the back that's considered retail space, too."

Marchington hasn't seen Hank Fells's sketches of Bogart Court but he has spoken with Judy Youshock and doesn't doubt that the proposed revitalization is plausible.

"There used to be a lot more activity in the alley way many years ago. You had a canvas manufacturer down there, a lot of kitchen equipment stuff was going on out the back door. Next door at the wholesale place, they used to service all the customers out the back."

The Downtown Renaissance subcommittee's plans for attracting tenants is no less grand than plans for the neighborhoods they would occupy.

"We're going to invite artists in from New York, Philly and pay for their bus trip here and have a weekend of art for them to enjoy in September and then show them potential loft spaces," related Judy Youshock. The committee hopes that local artists will take advantages of opportunities this summer to browse potential spaces. This June's Art and Jazz on the Ave and its accompanying Summer Solstice Art Walk are hoped to be such opportunities.

"We're talking to some building owners now to see if we could showcase some spaces that are empty and have some artists put some artwork in and have fliers to hand out and have people walk around and look," Youshock added.

With enthusiastic players of all disciplines working together and neighbors eager to piggyback on each others' efforts, projects such as Bogart Court look more than just possible.

They look probable.

"If everyone just does a little bit, like the "Main Street" approach we talked about," purported Paul Colaiezzi, "then it seems like you turn around and ... the whole thing is bigger than everybody thought." So while he insists the plans for Bogart Court are "very aspirational," he's not about to discourage them.

"Sometimes it's a good thing to hold this symbol out there and to say, 'Hey, here's what's possible. This may not be tomorrow and this may not be next week, but it doesn't mean that it can never be... We have a long way to go between that happening and where we are," he acknowledged. "Yet at the same time, it's not as long as it might have looked like six months ago or a year ago. It's a lot closer to happening."