Editor:
As requested by Mr. John Morgan, I have an idea for a more vibrant and profitable downtown.
Let’s get ourselves a good old-fashioned town square with a gazebo right on Main Street.
This idea only gets better with the location I have in mind: the northeast corner of 12th and Main streets.
Locating a town square at this location could solve several problems at the same time. We could bulldoze those mostly vacant buildings on that corner, and this would get rid of one downtown eyesore. The few businesses that are currently in those buildings could move to other currently vacant buildings, creating fewer vacant buildings in the downtown area.
Further, we could bulldoze the homes and apartments on Nandina Street behind those vacant buildings to make a larger town square. I frequently see the police visiting this area, so I’m sure they would be glad to get rid of the problems of this trouble spot.
So the town square would basically be like an open space with a gazebo, going from Main Street and 12th Avenue to make the intersection of 12th and Main a “straight-through” intersection rather than the troublesome “offset intersection” currently there.
The idea only gets better once you think about it. Bordering this location on the east are the front and rear parking lots for the Frontier Bar. On the north is parking on Nandina Street. On the northwest is a vacant lot, open space. On the west is a large parking lot and open space for the auto parts store. On the south is parking on Main Street. Across Main Street is open space by the espresso stand and then tons of parking back behind the businesses on the southwest corner of Main and 12th – in other words, plenty of open space for a Portland-like “Saturday Market” and tons of parking all around this location.
So picture this. We could move all of the retail sales events, which are currently held in the “hidden-from-view” high school basketball building to our new town square. People driving by would see a bunch of white tents set up in our town square and would then want to stop and see what was going on.
Perhaps there would be a band playing some good old-fashioned foot stompin’ music in the gazebo. Maybe the people stopping would want to stay awhile, listen to some music and grab a bit of lunch.
Maybe the wife would find a cute little “must-have” object to purchase. Someone else might remember he needed to get an auto part and might wander over to that store. Another person might want to walk across the street and buy an espresso. Someone else might wander down the street and have lunch at the restaurant. Some others might want to have a drink or lunch at the Frontier. Maybe a few people would wander over to the book store.
You get the idea….
Bill Davis
Sweet Home