The Niles City Council is preparing to form a committee to research the feasibility of changing many features in the city’s downtown area, including traffic flow, sidewalks, parking and landscaping.

The downtown streetscape, as it is called, was last updated in 2004 as part of a $1.3 million project.

City Administrator Ric Huff said at a Committee of the Whole meeting Monday that some downtown merchants are pushing to change the current streetscape.

One of those merchants is Four Flags Antique Mall owner Brian Shier, whose streetscape plan was reviewed by councilmembers Monday.

The plan includes the elimination of the center turn lane on Main Street downtown. It also adds angled parking on the south side of Main and four-way stop signs instead of stoplights where Main Street intersects Second, Third and Fourth streets.

Shier said he hopes the downtown can be a place where people can gather safely to shop, meet and relax.

“It is a feel that you are missing in the downtown,” Shier said. “Right now it is a route that is from point A to point B and people are using it to get there as quickly as possible. We are trying to create downtown as a destination.”

Shier’s plan has already gained traction with the city’s Downtown Development Authority, which has agreed to fund a study of the concept.

City officials expressed several concerns with the plan, including that it would make snow removal difficult and divert traffic to residential areas.

The council was not won over by Shier’s idea either.

However, the submission of the plan prompted Huff to recommend that the council create a downtown streetscape committee, whose purpose would be to study whether or not change is needed and, if so, what the changes would be. The committee, Huff said, would include all stakeholders in the downtown, not just the merchants. About 50 people sat on the committee in 2003.

“There are a lot of ideas being thrown around and some people are more vocal than others,” Huff said. “Then there is the largest group of people that I haven’t heard from yet.”

Although no action was taken, the consensus of the council was that it should begin the process of forming a streetscape committee.

“It is everybody’s downtown. It is not just the merchant’s,” said Mayor Mike McCauslin. “I think that everybody in the community needs a say in it.”

Huff said streetscapes have an average lifespan of about 20 years.