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Gifford Neighborhood Plan Analysis community identity. Factors that indicate that the 43`d Street and 45th Street Corridors have the potential to be redesigned as Neighborhood Commercial Activity Centers include the following: ■ They are easily accessible to both pedestrians and motorists in East Gifford; ■ They have sufficient public road right-of-way to accommodate improvements such as sidewalks and landscaping; ■ They are small and compact enough that minor improvements can have significant positive impacts; and ■ They already have a mix of commercial, institutional, and residential uses. Such Neighborhood Commercial Activity Center areas often provide increased community identity and pride, needed shops and services, and affordable housing in the form of apartments above shops, as well as jobs. Another benefit of redeveloping at least a portion of 45th Street and 43`d Street is related to the look and feel of the street. Although the 45th Street corridor is a major entranceway into Gifford and a major central-county east-west road, 45th Street, like most county arterial roads, was constructed primarily for the fast movement of cars, with little attention given to pedestrians, bicyclists, beautification, or public transportation. For those reasons, 45th Street lacks the features needed to make it a lively attractive street. Those features include wide sidewalks, street trees and landscaping, decorative lights, benches, and attractive buildings. As a result, 45th Street often appears desolate. Thus, it is currently an economically underused corridor along a major roadway. If redesigned as an attractive, urban, pedestrian-friendly main street, the 45th Street Corridor could become a major economic and aesthetic asset for the community, while still facilitating the flow of automobile traffic. ➢ Demand Issues Typically, neighborhood commercial activity centers locate within and near areas having a population size approximately equal to that of Gifford's. Neighborhood commercial activity centers sell convenience goods (food, drugs, cards, and sundries) and provide personal services (dry cleaning, hair and nail care, travel agent, and video rental) that meet the day-to-day living needs of the immediate area. Those types of shopping centers and the uses they contain, however, are generally absent from the Gifford area. For that reason, it is likely that Gifford residents currently leave Gifford for most of their retail and service purchases. That indicates that there is an opportunity for entrepreneurs to fill a neighborhood commercial niche in Gifford, conceivably in the 45th Street or 43`d Street Corridors. In fact, experts believe that neighborhood commercial centers should generally be 3 to 15 acres in size and serve 2,500 to 40,000 people within a radius of one half mile to 3 miles. The Gifford area contains a population of a little more than 5,000 people within approximately 3 square miles. The 43`d Street and 45th Street Corridors each contain between 6.5 and 7.5 acres of Community Development Department Indian River County 43