Tuesday night marked the first Downtown Business Owners meeting of 2026, a monthly forum started by City Councilman Taylor Clark for local business owners to share their ideas and concerns for the future of Johnstown.
Aside from the 15 business owners in attendance, councilman Taylor Clark, City Manager Art Martynuska, and Johnstown Chief of Police Mark Britton gathered at Jimmy T’s Firehouse Pub downtown for the meeting, where business owners expressed concerns about treating sidewalks in the winter months, shared ideas for ways to beautify unoccupied downtown businesses, and proposed taking a look at what other cities are doing to attract visitors.
One leader with the Discover Downtown Johnstown partnership also shared ideas for the future of Christmas celebrations in the city, including potentially increasing the number of houses in the village and spreading the display between Central Park and People’s Natural Gas Park.
Police Chief Mark Britton also discussed how the department is retaining officers, as well as a new program called “Right Size Calls,” which could dispatch mental health professionals to situations that they are better equipped to respond to rather than using police resources.
Meanwhile, City Manager Art Martynuska shared several updates for projects in the city, including plans at Central Park. He said the park is planned to offer free Wi-Fi for visitors, and an opening date is looking to be around mid-July.
He also discussed what he says are extremely preliminary plans for a potential project he called “Johnstown 2.0” that could allow the city to obtain bonds that would go towards upgrading infrastructure throughout the city.
Another proposed and very preliminary idea for “Johnstown 2.0” is turning the old Rosedale neighborhood, which is now used as a slag dump, into a potential landfill, which Martynuska and Clark said could drive major revenue into the city.
Between these new updates and the thoughts shared by the business owners, Clark said he’s thrilled to provide a platform where community members and city leaders can speak
“The whole meeting was just to ask, ‘What do you want to see in the city in 2026?’ From city council perspective, from local government perspective, from business perspective. And to combine all of those things together,” explained Clark.
Again, Martynuska and Clark stressed that the Johnstown 2.0 plans are in the extremely infant stages and are not set in stone.
The downtown business owner meetings are held on the third Tuesday of every month at various locations.
