A draft redevelopment plan for the northern end of downtown focused on the Union County Performing Arts Center could come before the City Council as early as next month.

City Council is next scheduled to meet for a regular meeting on April 13, and should the draft redevelopment plan be adopted, it would move on to the Planning Board.

“We think it’s a pretty comprehensive and well thought out plan,” City Administrator and Redevelopment Director Robert Landolfi said in his report to commissioners during the Redevelopment Agency’s monthly, public meeting on Tuesday night.

The redevelopment plan would focus on the arts center, to ensure its financial viability, but also include properties along Hamilton Street and Seminary Avenue and incorporate publicly held land and buildings on the north end of downtown, such as The Gallery Space in the former Arts Guild building at Seminary Avenue and Irving Street.

In December, City Council awarded a $33,000 contract to Heyer Gruel & Associates of Red Bank to prepare a redevelopment plan. That contract came months after a series of moves to study and designate several properties around Hamilton Street as in need of redevelopment, including the long-vacant St. Mark’s Church building that was demolished. In all, City Council designated six parcels in August as a condemnation redevelopment area and authorized the preparation of a redevelopment plan.

The city also plans to purchase the former Kelly’s Pub building where a jazz club had been planned years ago. City Council on Monday night adopted ordinances which had been tabled in December that will acquire the three parcels at Seminary Avenue and Irving Street. The nine properties in all would encompass the entire city block from the North Branch of the Rahway River along Hamilton Street and Seminary Avenue west to Gordon Place.

Mayor Ray Giacobbe, Jr., noted the redevelopment plan for the northern end of downtown in his State of the City address earlier this month.