The longtime leader of the Rochester Downtown Development Corporation has announced plans to retire later this year.
Heidi Zimmer-Meyer has been with the RDDC for 37 years, the last 18 of those years as president.
Among the projects she is most proud of working on with her team is something called The Commissary, located in the Sibley Square Building. That is the county’s first food-business incubator which provides high-end commercial kitchen equipment and reasonable rent for small food-based businesses trying to launch their companies.
“I think that’s a game changer for food businesses in this region, and it got built; everything got delayed and all of that during COVID, but it’s open, and it’s starting up and we’ve got 16 entrepreneurs that are now members of the Commissary and we’ve got events and that kind of thing, that given the rules that govern what we can do, at least some things are able to be done,” Zimmer-Meyer said.
Zimmer-Meyer said that even with the pandemic having a major impact over the last year, a lot of downtown development projects are still in the works.
And she believes that there will be even more activity as the COVID-19 virus recedes.
“Many of us are predicting a kind of explosive recovery, and we’re expecting a lot of pent up demand for everything from coming together as a community, going out for dinner, big events in the community, businesses getting jump started when everything really wakes up again,” Zimmer Meyer said.
RDDC Board Chair Chris Hill said that Zimmer-Meyer is handing over a stronger organization at a time when moment in downtown is accelerating. He noted that during Zimmer-Meyer’s tenure at RDDC, downtown grew from 1,575 residents to more than 8,500. Also, 60 buildings were converted to housing and 24 newly constructed housing projects were built.
Zimmer-Meyer will leave RDDC at the end of the years. The organization is working to recruit her successor.
