The website will provide listings of places to eat, shop and do on a visit to Warren, as well as where to stay and some historical background for the community.

“We feel like these last few years we can move foot traffic around better,” Piper VanOrd, owner ofAllegheny Outfitters, who is developing the website, said. “This group sort of lit the fire to get the website built.”

She said the site is almost complete with a “pretty simple, crisp, clean” look.

The address isn’t quite set yet — exploredowntownwarren.com was popular but there was discussion about whether to stick a “pa” after Warren.

Bob Dilks noted the SEO — search engine optimization — is “all that matters. As long as that back end of things is programmed and maintained… that’s all that really matters when it all comes down to it.”

VanOrd said the area covered is outside of the Trestle-to-Trestle’s riverfront footprint as there is some “heartache to leave out restaurants in the city but on the outskirts of this.”

County Commissioner Jeff Eggleston noted that the important thing is to make a start and Dilks advised defining a particular footprint “to get off the ground and get off the ground well. Don’t bite off more than you’re ready to really deal with.”

John Papalia, the WCCBI’s director of operations and tourism, called the website a “really awesome start.”

VanOrd said the feedback she’s gotten from business owners has been “awesome” and has shown a “real willingness to work together. (I) don’t know that I’ve really experienced that in the 10 years we’ve been downtown.”

The point of the website, she said, “is to get folks so they know what’s here… and then it’s up to the business.”

The Task Force is broken into three arms — retail, which is focusing on the website, as well as recreation and lodging.

On the recreation side, Don Nelson said that committee has been crafting a document of “priority events” — with the high priority items identified as an art contest, ribfest, raft race, farm-to-table festival and a “Taste of Warren wine and cheese event.

Their planning also looks at infrastructure needed to support recreation growth.

The committee will be working to identify responsible parties, timelines, costs and funding sources for the identified events and investments.

On the lodging side, Vince DeJoy, the city’s director of zoning, codes and economic development, said that the committee continues to “evaluate the mix of hotels” and said the group “felt there was a strong need for a downtown hotel.

“I think this is something we’ve got to keep exploring, finding the right building,” he said. “We just gotta find that right spot and a willing owner” to sell.

TASK FORCE’S FOCUS QUESTIONED

John Hanna expressed a concern that “this group has a larger vision than what the Trestle-to-Trestle was designed for” and said a second committee might be needed to look at the broader issues outside of the T-to-T footprint.

He asked if the focus was to develop the property in the identified area and said “I think we’ve lost site” of that plan.

“I think this group as a whole does need to focus itself on what it was created to do,” Dilks said, to “impact a specific footprint… and not stray away from that.”

He spoke in support of what is coming out of the effort — “it’s stuff that can’t be lost” — but said “there does need to be a refocusing…. (We) got to make sure we stay focused.”