Our recent discussions about the movement of
business from downtown to the tech park and the competition from Office
Depot and Hastings has me looking out my front window onto Main Street and
thinking that the future of downtown can't be determined by badmouthing the
alternatives, but by making the downtown a more attractive
alternative.
Many of the buildings downtown are old. Some
of the office spaces have very limited natural light, or no windows at all.
My office has had serious flooding in the past due to a leaky roof. There
are HUGE cracks in my ceilings and walls. If there were an explosion or an
earthquake near downtown, I fear many of the buildings would crumble. When
I've looked at other office space downtown, much of it would require a
tremendous investment just for cosmetic improvements. If I were moving a lot
of high tech equipment into an office, I would have some serious questions
about the wiring in some of these buildings and whether the roof was going
to fall in on my expensive equipment. I'm sure some landlords have made such
improvements, but when I see lawyers who own their own downtown building
moving to the 'burbs, I wonder if there isn't more reason they are moving
out of downtown besides lack of parking. Perhaps the cost of maintaining a
building downtown is just not cost effective. Yet at least at street level,
the rent for these buildings can be quite high. And that reduces the extent
to which a downtown merchant can compete with a chain. (I recently bought 5
zip disks at a downtown computer store for about $67. The same 5-pack at
Office Depot was $45 (with rebate).)
Is there something we can do as a community,
not just to encourage people to shop downtown, but to make sure that the
infrastructure of the downtown area remains viable without increasing the
cost of renting downtown so much that merchants are even less
competitive?
Lois
Melina