As one of Rochester's most established suburbs, Irondequoit isn't often seen as an area ripe for growth.

In fact, people often associate the town with the dismal Medley Centre, the underperforming mall that was once a commercial anchor.

But there's much more to this inner-ring ‘burb. It has established neighborhoods, a dense commercial corridor, two school districts, local and county parks, Seabreeze, and a bevy of small businesses. It also has natural features that some other communities would kill for - the Genesee River and lakefront that includes part of Irondequoit Bay.

And there are several projects on the burner that Irondequoit officials hope will make use of these assets to inject new vitality into the town.

To help prepare for Irondequoit's future, town officials and community leaders are kicking-off the public input phase of a master plan update with a meeting on October 2. It's a process that they hope will lead to a comprehensive vision for Irondequoit's future and a road map to get there. The town hasn't updated its master plan since 1985.

"I'm hoping it will provide a way for us to celebrate the assets we have and I'm hoping it will provide a mechanism that we can move forward on solving some of the problems we have," says Diane Zaccarine, a community activist who serves on the plan's steering committee.

Irondequoit is a town that is still evolving. Questions remain about the fate of the Medley Centre and the site of the ESL Federal Credit Union, which is leaving its Irondequoit headquarters for a new home in the city. There are condominiums and townhouses proposed for the site of the former Newport House restaurant. And the Route 590 expressway is being realigned in the Seabreeze area, which will open up two acres of space where the bay and lake meet - an idea suggested in the town's 1988 waterfront revitalization plan.

"It's going to, most likely, really put some development pressure into the Seabreeze area," says Tony Favro, an assistant to town Supervisor Mary Ellen Heyman.

Those changes and projects are just the start of what's going on around town.

A master plan can help focus development or redevelopment. It can also help to address some ongoing issues, Favro says, such as the way that commercial areas merge with residential areas or the amount and type of waterfront development the town should have. Recently, the town has seen interest from residential developers with proposals for both the Newport House and Lighthouse Pointe. Lighthouse Pointe is a former landfill.

"We need a good assessment of market potential on the waterfront," Favro says.

What Zaccarine really wants to see the plan address is the concerns of the residents - what they see as the town's significant challenges. The public input phase will be important for identifying and outlining those concerns, she says.

She expects that the commercial corridor - including the struggling Medley Centre - will be on the minds of many.

Existing plans - "there's a whole shelf of them," Favro says - have their place in the process, too. They will be examined and the relevant parts will be incorporated into the master plan.

Those include the Hudson-Cooper-Titus plan, the open space inventory, and the Parks and Recreation Plan.

But those plans never took a holistic look at the town. The master plan will revolve around the idea that, as Favro puts it, "whenever you make a decision in one place it affects another."

That means traffic, residential and commercial markets, redevelopment opportunities, and other factors will have to undergo a comprehensive analysis.

"It all starts with a vision that everybody buys into," Favro says.