Wilsonville city manager talks next steps for Town Center development community outreach

Published 3:00 pm Wednesday, July 23, 2025

With a new council in place — and more than a year after voters rejected a ballot measure that would have financed development through urban renewal — the city of Wilsonville is considering next steps in the planned revitalization of Town Center. During the City Council meeting on Monday, July 21, the Wilsonville City Council directed City Manager Bryan Cosgrove to follow up with third party consultants to conduct focus groups and research to gauge how the plan might be altered and financed.   

“At our last meeting, I got the distinct impression from council that you would like to get moving on the town center public engagement process. There’s two tasks that we could get going with your direction. So, task one would be to interview each one of you to figure out what your hopes and aspirations are for Town Center and the urban renewal district that’s proposed for that,” said Cosgrove. “The second, discrete task would be either two or three stakeholder focus groups.” 

These focus groups would be divided into a group of residents who are overwhelmingly positive or supportive of the Town Center Plan and urban renewal district, a group that’s opposed to either of those proposals and a focus group of unengaged residents who have no opinions or prior knowledge about the plan.  

The Town Center Plan was originally adopted in 2019 and revised in 2021. It proposed a redesigned town center district that would replace the current parking lot-oriented design with multi-use buildings, higher density and walkable amenities. Voters rejected the urban renewal measure in May 2024, with some in the community believing the plan would add too much housing density and also worrying about the impacts that urban renewal can have on taxing jurisdictions (urban renewal takes the taxes associated with increases in property values and uses them for public improvement projects). 

The city doesn’t have another clear mechanism for funding the project without urban renewal. 

The new council agreed earlier this year that it should reengage the community on options for the plan.

Town Center Street Network from Town Center Plan, 2021. (City of Wilsonville website)

The current plan prioritizes multi-use transportation options including adding a pedestrian walking bridge across I-5 and expanding the public transit options from Wilsonville’s transit provider, South Metro Area Regional Transit.

The plan outlines six implementation strategies that the city would need to take to make the reenvisioned district a reality: regulatory actions, infrastructure investments, parking strategies, placemaking strategies, economic development strategies and transit investments.