RFP Staff
♦The central vein of Downtown Salisbury is Main Street and its numerous pockmarks of decay and vacancies. The central vein serves as an ugly reminder that Salisbury has no viable downtown economic plan save for its “Downtown Master Plan” based on looting the county taxpayers to construct high-priced and unrequired buildings. Mercifully to date every suggested Master Plan building has wound up scrapped on the drawing board. Even the blundering city council had the good sense to vote down the Convention Center to be built where nobody goes: the South Main tenderloin.
Earlier some noble minds at Downtown Salisbury Inc. got excited about a rotted out former flophouse ”The Empire Hotel” and blew millions on it. For years now this seedy bat’s nest on South Main has gone unsold. Now its best options appear to be a wrecking ball or gutting its rotted interior and remaking it into a domed multi-tiered parking lot. On second thought no one really ventures to South Main.
More recently the city tried to rip-off county taxpayers to build a proposed Taj Mahal for the school system on unstable, watery, and vapor intruded infill, but the county commissioners wisely nixed that deal. Enter the city council and it’s infamous city manager’s office. These vast minds, unsullied by forethought, are now attempting to convince the Local Government Commission the school Central Office is now a commercial building even though for well over a year its been designed and promoted as a school administration building. And to top it all, the city is offering this “commercial building” with a 35 month lease to evade the Local Government Commission’s statutes. It’s easy to imagine the State Treasurer rolling his eyes at the city’s latest scam.
What is more pathetic is city hall and its economic development advisors believe the downtown central office will serve as an economic stimulator, drawing in millions in investment. Further they support these economic stimulator theories with absurd ”studies” claiming the downtown Central Office’s inhabitants will generate $102 per person weekly. Rubbish. This alleged study was based on everyday office studies. This is like comparing apples to pistachios. This is a false and tasteless promise to toss at those desperate downtown merchants, many of whom will disappear from the landscape during the coming year.
Come now who would waste their money on Main Street’s bric-a-brac and junktique stores? Seriously has anyone taken the time to observe the shopping and eating habits of school administration employees? If they did, they would surely note the impossibility of their spending $102 per week on destitute Main Street. Let’s examine the actual dining and shopping habits of school administration employees:
• Arrive at the Central Office before the stores and most dining spots opened and leave after they close.
• Most Central Office workers would brown bag and microwave their lunches.
• A large contingent leave the administration building after arriving and travel out into the county. They will never spend a dime Salisbury.
• It’s well known that Salisbury suffers from massive retail leakage. Every weekend wise shoppers buy online or zoom down I-85 to Afton Ridge, Concord Mills, Huntersville, and Charlotte or they visit Winston. School administrators are savvy enough not to waste their money on Main Street.
Salisbury, because of its long time short-sightedness and their chronic fighting off big chain retail, is now paying the price as they fall further and further behind other North Carolina cities in retail attractions. With the coming of retail giants to Summit on Julian Road and later to Southern Rowan because of the I-85 interchange, downtown’s ghostly Main Street’s future is bleak. Sadly, the NIMBYs. the shop locos, and the historic groups won and preserved downtown’s historic character of old buildings without any real history. Now decay and vacancies rule. The barriers to economic development in Salisbury are exceedingly high as this article on the city’s livability ratings attest:
http://rowanfreepress.com/2013/06/16/how-salisbury-fares-in-north-carolina-city-ratings/
Previous articles concerning downtown’s economic struggles:
http://rowanfreepress.com/2013/08/18/hard-times-on-salisburys-main-street-closings-multiply/
http://rowanfreepress.com/2013/06/30/salisburys-new-backdoor-super-economy-wigs-and-dollar-stores/
http://rowanfreepress.com/2013/08/11/the-myths-of-the-shop-local-movement-debunked/
