RFP Staff
♦ It’s too bad that a decent restaurant like Cooper’s closed its doors yesterday. Ethos another restaurant on North Main pulled up its rug not so long ago. Why did Cooper’s close? It certainly was not the food or the hosts. There are many good restaurants downtown including Bangkok Downtown, El patron, Go Burrito, and Uncle Bucks. Maybe too many considering the lack of traffic to the Downtown area. Aside from our restaurants, as we’ve said repeatedly here, there’s not enough attractions to the draw people into the downtown area.
Here’s why Downtown Salisbury is making it a survival of the fittest for restaurants and shops and is not drawing people:
• There’s no parking. There’s barely enough for the Downtown merchants.
• People are annoyed at driving to the Downtown area due ultra slow traffic lights and already heavy congestion on Innes. Many folks simply don’t want deal with the frustration of a trip into Salisbury.
• Many are concerned about crime in Salisbury and fear traveling there especially at night. Despite the fallacious claims by Downtown vested interests that no gangs exist in the area, Salisbury is brimming with gangs. Many stroll down both Innes and Main all hours of the day. Drug deals are done on street corners on South Main. All of Main Street in Downtown Salisbury is coated with gang tag graffiti. Buildings and back alleys have become a banger Louvre.
http://rowanfreepress.com/2014/01/20/pictionary-of-gang-graffiti-downtown-salisbury-gang-turf-tags/
• Save for a few niche shops that keep surviving because they are well run like the Stitching Post, Southern Spirit Gallery, Pottery 101, and Growing Pains, the Main Street area lacks enough traffic to support it. Every three weeks it appears that shop puts chains across its doors, a “No Trespassing” sign in its window, and turns off its lights forever. Some folks are calling the Main Street area “vacancy land.” Heaven forbid another economic dip strikes Salisbury. More lights out.
http://rowanfreepress.com/2013/08/18/hard-times-on-salisburys-main-street-closings-multiply/
http://rowanfreepress.com/2013/09/15/videos-salisburys-main-street-ghost-town-usa/
• Sadly the Main Street area lacks small chain boutique stores and small markets like Trader Joes to actually attract people. Until they get attractions down on Main, they will continue to suffer from firefly syndrome.
• Closing up stores on Main St. as early as 5 p.m. makes shopping there even more inaccessible. But shopkeepers can’t be blamed about wanting to get out of there at nightfall. They don’t want to wind up as an FBI statistic in the Bury.
• Shopping elsewhere is growing in popularity as more people shop on the internet or travel down I-85 to Afton Ridge, Concord Mills, and Huntersville or over to Winston. Shopping leakage out of Salisbury and Rowan seems to mount.
• County resentment toward Downtown Salisbury continues to grow especially in the light that county taxpayers feel used by Salisbury and now the school board is fixing to sue county taxpayers. Many are ticked off by the lies and rumors being spread about the Mall purchase by the city of Salisbury. Most county folk know the Mall won’t raise taxes, but will lower them in the long run. Salisbury sponsored candidates claiming the Mall will raise taxes will guarantee their loss at the polls. If there are Salisbury haters out there, they’ve been created by a desperate and dying city who tries to scam the county taxpayers at every turn. Why travel to a place that wants to put a serious hurting on your taxes?
Cold winter weather is not the problem in Downtown Salisbury. Many just don’t want to go there.
