When Kettering Mayor Brian Suddith took office in January, he became the city’s 12th mayor.
Suddith said he became interested in the position during his two years serving on city council. He called former long-time mayor Peggy Lehner a friend and mentor and said he’s working hard to fill her shoes.
For WYSO’s City Mayor Series, Jerry Kenney spoke with Suddith about his term so far.
This transcript has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Bryan Suddith: What I'm hearing from residents here is mostly two things: vacant storefronts and property maintenance.
That seems to be the theme that I heard throughout the campaign over the last year that residents want to see a Kettering that looks visually the way it did when they chose to come here maybe 30, 40, some 50 years ago. So in that storefront piece is really just a response to the economic conditions of the entire suburban Miami Valley community. How do we re-envision what those spaces will look like that we've moved, that the consumers have moved from storefront retail? How do you re-invision for what's next for those spaces?
Jerry Kenney: The aesthetics of living in a community certainly was important to a lot of people we spoke with and that falls right in line with that. Speaking of long-term visions that you talked about with former Mayor Lehner, what do you see for the city of Kettering 10, 15, even 20 years down the road?
Suddith: We've just finished the first comprehensive land use plan that we had in probably two decades and that document has sort of re-envisioned our five major retail spaces in Kettering. We have these little pearls that sort of connect. We don't have a traditional downtown, but we have these little retail hotspots. And so that plan helped us engage with hundreds of residents to re-invision what those would look like.
And that includes walkability and traffic and how accessible these places are, even down to what the streetscapes will look like with trees and landscaping and how we treat those five miniature downtowns spread across our city.
Kenney: Yeah, a lot of cities are actually going for an arts and culture district. So you're trying to do that on a maybe a smaller scale with these remote for lack of a better word, locations.
Suddith: We have five distinct shopping retail areas that all deserve attention. And we can't say to the folks in East Kettering that we're going to focus on Town and Country and West Kettering, right? We have Stroop-Mar, Wilmington Plaza, The Oaks. We have places that all deserve our time and attention, but those plans that we are making now, we won't see come to fruition, like you said, maybe 10 years, 12 years down the road.
Kenney: What do you like about the City of Kettering?
Suddith: We chose to bring our kids here and raise our kids here 25 years ago, and it really was a combination of high quality schools, the dedication to parks and open spaces, and just overall the safety for town 58,000. We have the ability to give it a really small town feel, and people are really tied to their neighborhood parks, their neighborhood schools and their neighborhoods. East Kettering is distinctly different from parts of West Kettering, and the center of Kettering is different. And that's what I love about it. There's a piece of Kettering that can appeal to anybody. At almost any income level as well.
Kenney: Any other challenges, opportunities for the city that you want to highlight for our listeners.
Suddith: We're really focused on our business community. We've not given them the attention that they perhaps need or deserve. And with the absence of an organized Chamber of Commerce in our city, we really see an opportunity to start to bring these people together. And I'm leaning on the Economic Development Department here to help lead that charge. And we're excited about what we're doing with businesses to help them create a vision for how they work together and what a new organization might look like in the future.
And we are hoping this fall to make an announcement about what the next generation of business collaboration or cooperation looks like in Kettering.
Kenney: You mentioned the future development plan. When do you determine some definite actions to come out of that plan?
Suddith: I'll tell you, the plan is out there, so it is available for review by residency. You can kind of see what those five priority areas look like or what they could look like. We're in the process of updating maps and zoning codes now, and I think we're gonna start to see shovels and activity by fall. So as soon as we release that plan and lift a moratorium on so many businesses, and we have a better understanding of where we want those businesses and where they're going to be permitted to be, we're going to see some action start this fall.
So it's not gonna take long before residents see things changing.
Kenney: And they can see those plans on the city government website.
Suddith: Yeah, at KetteringOH.org and if you click the comprehensive plan, you can see maps and how we've envisioned what the Town and Country or Stroop-Mar or the Triangle at Wilmington and Woodman will look like in 10 years to come.
