A Greater Sense of Neighborhood is another way to increase more growth Downtown! With our businesses and residence Downtown, Ron and I are Downtown 24/7. So we experience some sense of neighborhood from different sources; as do other Downtown businesses. But we need more foot, bike, and vehicular traffic from the thousands of workers that make up the Monday through Friday day-time population Downtown. It’s like entertainment venues wanting more “butts in the seats”; Downtown needs more “feet on the streets”. We, and other businesses, treasure our neighbors. We appreciate the gentleman that walks to the library nearly every day and always stops in the Center to visit. Also, the owners of LIFE 103.1 and The Grey Area also come downtown to visit on a regular basis. We have friends that blow their horn whenever they drive by as their way to say hello, and those that knock on the window and wave as they walk by. Saturday, one of Rocky Mount’s finest drove his Segway into our Center to say hello. It was cool seeing him open the door and drive right in. The Amtrak Host riders visit often, as do others that I am forgetting. We and many businesses have a wonderful customer base that shop but also visit to say hello. More feet on the streets portray a greater sense of neighborhood for potential investors. However, after Streetscapes, many new customers to our Center asked why our Main Street “looks so dead and empty?” Also, there are fewer businesses on Main Street today than there were 7 years ago when we first came to Rocky Mount, despite the recent renovation on Southwest Main Street. There are some fire and police personnel that do not know we live Downtown. While Main Street is a part of the designated Historic Downtown Neighborhood, it takes people to create a neighborhood and reverse the empty feeling. We would greatly appreciate it if more City leaders, City Council persons, Chamber Members, and other workers would try and take more break time or part of their lunch time to walk downtown, in order to encourage other foot traffic. I mention these groups of people because they are only 1-2 blocks away! Please start a campaign of encouraging each other to come Downtown and use the benches to eat with a friend or co-worker and say hello to your business owners. - Hilarie
Posted on: Wed, 26 Jun 2013 19:20:03 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015