Are public restrooms needed along Peace Plaza?

With this week’s hot weather, Rochester families are seeking places to cool off, including the new water scrim in Peace Plaza. But while the redesigned plaza offers kids a chance to splash around, the downtown area doesn’t offer a publicly accessible place for them to dry off. 

The lack of public facilities downtown was a concern raised this week by Rochester City Councilor Molly Dennis following a recent visit to the plaza.

“I was watching these kids get sopping wet,” said Dennis. “And I thought, ‘When I had my young kids, I always had a change of clothes in my bag. Where are they going to change?’”

Similarly, Dennis said that when it comes to events like Fresh Air Fitness, which the Rochester Downtown Alliance (RDA) hosts in the Peace Plaza on Saturdays, there is no convenient restroom.

With all of the new activity taking place in the city center, Dennis said she sees an increasing need for public facilities downtown.

“I believe it’s important to address this need in our growing city with people who have all different ages and abilities,” said Dennis. “Everyone needs to use the restroom at some point.”

While the city council did not take action on the topic on Monday, officials from the RDA said they have been giving attention to the issue, and Rochester residents could start to see efforts toward publicly accessible restrooms downtown as soon as next year. 

RDA Executive Director Holly Masek said access to public restrooms is about more than convenience, it is also about equity. For example, most businesses limit bathroom use for customers only. Maintaining cleanliness downtown is also a consideration, she added.

“To know that there's a place where they can go that is clean and accommodating and welcoming to them will help relieve some of those issues,” said Masek.

With the premium on space downtown and the area’s various stakeholders, however, details like placement, maintenance, seasonality, and portability will need to be worked out by multiple parties, including the city, RDA, Destination Medical Center, and private businesses. 

The RDA is researching best practices for public restrooms and hopes to have some form of better public restroom accessibility by next year or even sooner, according to Kanika Couchene, director of events and strategic partnerships at RDA.

In addition to making downtown more welcoming, Couchene said that public restrooms could help facilitate more events downtown by enabling smaller organizations to host events without facing the expense of renting portable restrooms. 

“I think that the conversation is on the table and the fact that people are like, ‘We’re willing to work with you, we just need some of these details,’ is a great sign,” said Couchene. “I'm hoping that we'd be able to have something by next year or even in the winter timeframe.” 

Couchene also said shorter winter events like Social-ICE could offer a chance to pilot ideas before implementing them for the summer season. However, she cautioned that more permanent facilities downtown are further away, because the RDA wants to have a detailed and considered plan that takes into account factors like maintenance and budget.

“We want it to look like it's here as an amenity for people to come and linger [downtown], and if we don't have a whole plan, it could really backfire and not be a great addition, which we don't want for our community,” said Couchene.

Teresa Nowakowski is a graduate of Lourdes High School who now studies at the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University.