Members of Advantage Watertown will finally get their face-to-face meeting with the Watertown City Council now that new City Manager Sharon A. Addison will begin her job next week.

The group of business and community leaders will attend the City Council’s Aug. 13 work session to talk about how Advantage Watertown can help the city achieve its goals and solve its problems.

The joint meeting with the council was prompted after council members Jeffrey M. Smith and Roxanne M. Burns questioned in March how and why the group was formed.

The topic came up again during Advantage Watertown’s monthly meeting Thursday morning. Members talked about how they should approach the discussion with council members.

“I don’t want us to go and have to justify us,” member Peter W. Schmitt said.

Group members also said they do not believe it’s a good idea to revisit how and why the group was formed eight years ago.

Member Michael C. Miller stressed that the group of volunteers wants to help the city in any way it can.

The joint meeting originally was scheduled tentatively for June 25, but then was delayed until after Ms. Addison started her new job.

On Thursday, Chairman John K. Bartow Jr. suggested that he and Mayor Jeffrey E. Graham meet with Ms. Addison before the joint session, so she can learn more about the group and its role.

The group of business and community leaders meets every month to brainstorm about topics such as parking, housing and other downtown issues.

Jefferson County Board of Legislators Chairwoman Carolyn D. Fitzpatrick — the only original Advantage Watertown member — reiterated the group’s stance that council members have always been welcome to attend the monthly meetings.

“Are there any of the council members here? Oh, I didn’t think they’d be,” she said after looking around the conference table.

In 2004, the group came about as a result of combining three other city committees: the Downtown Development Committee and steering committees for the Local Waterfront Revitalization Program and Quality Communities demonstration project.

In other business, Advantage Watertown members:

■ Learned that the developer of the Woolworth building on Public Square will meet with the City Council on Aug. 13 to discuss plans to turn the vacant building into 60 apartments. New partner David Gallo is expected to make a presentation to the council about the $7.275 million project.

Mr. Gallo was on his way to Watertown in April to meet with council members, but canceled the session because he was stuck in traffic in Pennsylvania and would not get here in time.

Since then, the city and Mr. Gallo have been trying to reschedule the meeting. Michael A. Treanor, the Long Island developer who proposed the project, will not attend the Aug. 13 session.

On Thursday, Kenneth A. Mix, the city’s planning and community development coordinator, said the city and the developer still must decide the issue of moving the city’s central bus transfer station that sits behind the building on Arcade Street.

The developers have told city officials that obtaining the site of the bus loop and some green space on the other side of Public Square, near the Woodruff Professional Building, is necessary to do the restoration. Both sites would be used for parking.

■ Said they want to tour the old Masonic Temple and learn more about new owner Garrett L. McCarthy’s plans to redevelop the landmark at 242 Washington St. They said they hope to meet with him at the Aug. 9 meeting and then tour the building that morning.

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