This week Domenic Sarno marks four months in office as Springfield's mayor. He's got big plans, all of them linked to the simple idea of making the city clean and safe.

On a gray, drizzly day, Mayor Domenic Sarno talked about his plans for Springfield. Three words came up again and again during our Friday conversation: clean and safe. And he hopes to put that vision into play right outside his City Hall office, in the massive Elm Street block on Court Square. He would like it to turn it into apartments or condos.

Mayor Sarno told us, "If it's clean and safe, you have a lot of empty nesters and baby boomers that are looking to downsize, and they're looking for an urban setting or an urban neighborhood."

Mayor Sarno says downtown housing will grow if the city achieves what he calls an eclectic mix of stores and restaurants. Over on Worthington Street, a new restaurant is operating behind the scaffolding. The Mayor believes the 350 Grill is a good addition to an entertainment district that can be covered on foot.

Mayor Sarno says, "Get them moving around, walking, not vehicular."

Visitors with money to spend need to be part of the city's growth. Outside the Basketball Hall of Fame, he said what a lot of people think and worry about.

"When you think of the city of Springfield, do you think the Basketball Hall of Fame right off the top, no you don't."

Mayor Sarno looks would like Springfield to be a lot more like Cooperstown, the out of the way place that's built in baseball.

He's talking to private developers about creating a court of dreams. An indoor basketball facility that could host tournaments drawing hundreds of school-age kids and their families. But as important as economic development is, Sarno is most passionate about clean and safe.

He showed off a house on Chapel Street that only a few months ago, was a drug house where two women were stabbed. The city's crackdown on ordinance violators and vacant house helped get the place into the right hands, and now it's ready for tenants again.

Mayor Sarno summed it up this way: "Clean and safe streets. If we continue to move in that direction, then the sky's the limit for the city of Springfield."