What makes a great community and, more importantly, how do you create it?

First, you need a vision, then a plan, then action, said Randy Oostra, president and chief executive of ProMedica.

“Communities can change. It happens when a whole variety of people get together and say, ‘We’ve got to change things in our community,’ ” he said.

But coming together hasn’t yet occurred in Toledo, said Mr. Oostra, who discussed the progress of the new 22nd Century Committee during a lunch event at the Toledo Summit of EPIC Toledo, the region’s largest program for young professionals. 

About 250 young professionals, community leaders, and business leaders attended the daylong summit, held at the Radisson Hotel on the University of Toledo Medical Center, the former Medical College of Ohio hospital. 

It featured seminars and networking, all designed to help young professionals advance in their careers and become civic leaders.

Mr. Oostra, the lunch keynote speaker, co-chairs the 22nd Century Committee — a group of local businesses and community leaders who gathered in May to create a private-public partnership aimed at bringing back vitality, jobs, and social activities to the city core.

In his speech, Mr. Oostra said that, over the years, several master plans to revive downtown were created, but none by private interests. 

Yet while public funds launch redevelopment, it’s private money that always fuels the bulk of redevelopment costs.

And ProMedica, a private entity, will play a huge role in revitalizing downtown Toledo. 

“ProMedica could have gone to a greenfield, but the trend across the country is to go back downtown,” the CEO said.

Plans are moving forward for the health-care provider to relocate a headquarters to downtown to the vacant steam plant on Summit Street. Mr. Oostra said other things are in motion too.

The steam plant will become office space for 1,000 workers at first, and likely another 1,200 later. New retail and a parking garage will follow, but also a redeveloped public park that could lead to a “riverwalk” in Toledo, Mr. Oostra said.

The committee, Mr. Oostra said, wants to form a private strategic real estate development corporation that could buy properties in disrepair or in danger of demolition, and preserve them until they can be redeveloped. “I don’t think that’s existed in Toledo for a few decades,” he said.

The committee also has hired architects who will create a downtown master plan, Mr. Oostra added. A downtown storefront will be created so the public can view the plan and comment.

Contact Jon Chavez at: jchavez@theblade.com or 419-724-6128.

First Published November 13, 2015, 5:00 a.m.