RFP Staff
♦ Recently the idea was floated about constructing high-end apartments in Downtown Salisbury which drew snickers from those gathered around a table at Bangkok Downtown. Everyone assembled was all too familiar with the Salisbury desperation to revive its blighted and vacant downtown area.
“Don’t they have enough empty apartments, condos, and office spaces as it is?” said one local Salisbury businessman. “What are they thinking? First they propose a Needle Park near Rowan Helping Ministries and then they are talking up calming traffic on East Innes and a left hand turn at the Square.”
Someone else chimed in: “Remember they wanted to build the Taj Mahal at the 329 S. Main which would magically attract investment to the area.”
After the laughing and table pounding died, one fellow added, “These people completely miss they have no real attractions, retail, or parking. Nobody wants to go down there. Main Street shuts down at 5 p.m. People are afraid to go there because of the crime. There’s nothing open at night except a few bars and restaurants. Its dead. People wanting to live downtown–not happening.”
Let’s back up a minute. If spaces were to be renovated into apartments and condos, to whom would they rent these apartments and condos? Remember now a glut of vacant apartments, office spaces and condos exists already in downtown Salisbury.
Urban flight is increasing in Salisbury as people are unloading their houses and moving to places that don’t have Salisbury’s soaring poverty, high crime, and substandard public education. The young are moving away to make a future where better opportunities avail themselves.
Realistically downtown Salisbury possesses its share of vacancies and decay. On many afternoons and evenings, downtown appears like a ghost town from its lack of human traffic.
Many hear aggressive incentives for downtown means area taxpayers will take it on the chin to pay for downtown projects likely to go empty. And who gains from these incentives?
Several solid ways of putting the brakes on Downtown Salisbury’s and Main Street’s downward spiral:
(1) Break up the downtown’s self-defeating monopoly that excludes chain stores. (They attract people).
(2) Develop novel attractions. Downtown has virtually no attractions save for a handful of restaurants and a few bars. Certainly novel attractions could be constructed downtown like “Discovery Place” in Downtown Huntersville or the Aquarium at Concord Mills.
(3) Become informed about what can actually draw people into downtown and Main Street. Building apartments is putting the cart before donkey. Novel attractions and chain retail pull the cart. Higher priorities best be done first.
(4) Avoid the overzealous use of historic codes that cripple economic growth in downtown Salisbury.
(5) Cut ties with bankers more interested in taking their banks off the hook for bad downtown investments than they are in the community or in education.
(6) Avoid listening to “visionaries” who failed to see the challenges of putting Fibrant in an overcrowded field of incumbents and buying the Empire Hotel last opened as a “flop house” in 1963.
(7) Parking needs to be dramatically improved.
(8) Avoid misleading people about downtown and Main Street being “vibrant”. People are disappointed when they visit and see the lack of activity, vacancies, decay, and lack of attractions. It leaves a bad impression. Those people are unlikely to return.
Without a sprinkling of chain retail and novel attractions, why would anyone want to venture into Downtown Salisbury?
Many challenges exist for people inhabiting downtown “upstairs” apartments:
Street, bar, and restaurant noise.
Night crime in Downtown Salisbury.
Lack of parking.
Rats, mice , and roaches if you live above an eatery.
Videos of Downtown Salisbury:
Downtown Salisbury, N.C.’s South Main Wastelands:
http://rowanfreepress.com/2014/04/07/video-downtown-salisbury-n-c-s-south-main-wastelands/
Salisbury’s Main Street Ghost Town USA:
http://rowanfreepress.com/2013/09/15/videos-salisburys-main-street-ghost-town-usa/
Downtown Salisbury, NC gang tags:
http://rowanfreepress.com/2014/02/27/video-main-street-salisbury-nc-gang-tags/
