Chairman Jack Langowski said the Downtown Advisory Committee has heard about 230 ideas from community members.

The committee held its eighth and final meeting Wednesday at the Carbondale Civic Center. The committee, created to gather input on downtown improvements, has met biweekly since August. It discussed topics such as transportation, signage and entertainment among others.

“It’s unprecedented, really, the amount of responses we’ve received,” Langowski said.

He said the projects, including a multimodal transportation center, are hoped to be completed within five to seven years.

Three committee members and city staffers will select engineering, landscaping and other consultants between now and Feb. 1, he said.

A majority of the projects will take several years, but one committee project is already underway.

D. Gorton, committee member, said he meets regularly with Frontier Communications and Clearwave Internet providers about the possibility of wireless Internet downtown. He said both providers have invested in fiber optic wiring in the city.

“We may be the most wired, high-speed city in the country,” he said.

Gorton said the project is still in its infancy and needs investors before it can progress.

Ray Simpson, 57, of Carbondale, said he is weary about what kind of progress will occur with the committee’s ideas without the help of privatized funding. He said the city also has to be realistic in light of the university’s economic regression.

“There are so many things that have to happen for these projects to really gel,” he said.

Jim Hagler, 56, of Carbondale, said he appreciates how the committee broke down each issue into several meetings, all with individual themes, but the city’s main priority should be branding itself.

“People are calling us ‘Carbon-hole’ because we don’t have our own crafted brand source,” he said.

Hagler said a well-known brand would attract more funding from Springfield and make it harder for politicians to ignore the city.

Salukis also had the opportunity to contribute to new downtown concepts.

Students from the senior program in the School of Architecture studying urban landscaping presented a model, including visual representations of a revitalized downtown, before the meeting.

The conceptual downtown featured new additions including a skate park, several new buildings for commercial businesses and a pedestrian walkway extending the Saluki Way pathway to the Strip.

Langowski said the model, meant to provide fresh ideas for the downtown, highlighted the committee’s ideas while providing original concepts.

He said it will be on display at the Old Train Depot, and hopes to present it to consultants in the future.

Marissa Novel can be reached at [email protected], on Twitter @marissanovelDE or at 536-3311 ext. 268.