“The biggest thing people need is the right connections to get out of the (negative) mentalities and isolation they feel,” Sparks said.

Sparks helps people make those connections.

But what if, Sparks thought, rather than coach the directionless people, he coached the place? Could he help make a place so cool, so vibrant, so desirable that its people would feel a natural connection to it and each other?

We’ll see. Sparks and two colleagues recently launched Local Life Tacoma – a nonprofit organization aimed at adding life to their downtown Tacoma neighborhood.

“I think we’re at a turning point in a lot of ways,” Sparks said during an interview last week at the Tully’s coffeehouse on Broadway. “I think it’s the first time in at least 20 years that we’ve had a growing population downtown.”

What can help turn that growing urban population into a connected, energetic neighborhood?

Ultimately, Sparks said, the people will help determine their own common priorities for the place.

As a starting point, however, Local Life Tacoma wants to spend this year drawing people together around some test macro and micro themes – business, political and social.

Themes such as boosting the local economy by buying from local merchants, fighting global warming by advocating for streetcars, building vibrancy through good design, driving out crime by congregating in the problem areas.

Make one part of a neighborhood better and it helps other parts of the neighborhood, Sparks said.

“At least downtown,” he said, “there are enough assets and strengths and resources in place now to stimulate the economy and make it such a great place to live that other companies will come as a result of it. Then you have a chance to say to those new businesses, ‘How will your engagement here serve this place?’”

Sparks’ partners in Local Life Tacoma are Mark Votava, a schoolteacher and a student at the University of Washington Tacoma, and Justin Mayfield, who runs the Tacoma Farmers Market. They sponsored their first forum this week to test interest. They called it, provocatively, “Go Local or Die 2008.”

The forum featured a panel of some of downtown’s young, nouveau leaders – Morgan Alexander, real estate broker and founder of Tacoma Streetcar; Patricia Lecy-Davis, owner of Embellish Salon and president of the Downtown Merchants Group; Kevin Freitas, founder of Feed Tacoma, a downtown-oriented blog; and Eric Bjornson, attorney and vice chairman of the North End Neighborhood Council.

Roughly 30 people showed up Tuesday night at Veritas Mortgage Group’s financial education center on Broadway. They also heard a pep talk from Jim Diers, former head of the Seattle Department of Neighborhoods. Diers acted as fireball evangelist armed with images and anecdotes from neighborhoods around the world that have turned themselves from victims to vibrancy.

Fired up by the inspiration, some in the crowd decided they needed to act to take back Frost Memorial Park, next to the North Park Plaza parking garage, from the ne’er-do-wells who hang out there. During the lunch hour today, you’ll likely find a group of law-abiding downtown folks hanging out there together.

Diers told the downtown advocates their local focus will work.

“Neighborhood is the place with which we identify,” he said. “Community is how we support each other. It’s hard to talk about ‘the Tacoma community.’ You can’t get to know everyone in Tacoma. But downtown? You can.”

Dan Voelpel: 253-597-8785

dan.voelpel@thenewstribune.com