Ok, so people have sounded off in the You Said It column and with letters to the editor and I am just baffled. Are the residents of Happy Valley so short-sighted? Can they not look at the 7th Street and Colorado Avenue and see what huge improvements have been made? Can they not see the new buildings that have gone up on 7th Street? Can they not see that the businesses on Colorado Avenue are still there after months of construction? All this gnashing of teeth over Main Street really makes me shake my head.
Oh so long ago - back in the '60s, a group of folks got together and created what we know as Main Street today. I'm sure they had their detractors, but let's be real, they changed the face of downtown and made it a destination not just a jumble of storefronts. Yes, businesses have come and gone. I'm sure if you looked really close you will see legitimate reasons for those closings - not changing with shifting customer desires, not offering what the local community wants, getting priced out of the market, refusing to be open late or on weekends, rent going up, the shale bust - need I go on?
Bottom line: Main Street needs to have a consistent look with the other recent improvements. The businesses that are doing well will simply have to do what some have refused to do up until now, market themselves and get prospective customers to walk across their thresholds. Maybe this will be a wake-up call that the downtown folks need to really take their shopping park to another level. Cuz you know what? It's going to look great when it's done!
No comments:
Post a Comment