Thank You, Jim Baer

Jim Baer got it right at last night's Downtown Complete Streets Improvement Project Advisory Committee meeting.

Market and above market priced residential housing on Main Street is a main ingredient in revitalizing our downtown. The flaw of the proponents who support the downtown revitalization project is their claim, that if you make it pretty they will come.

Eliminating traffic lanes, reducing on street parking, heating sidewalks, ADA accessibility, safer street crossings and bike lanes are all great goals. But as a stand along project it will do nothing to improve the financial prospects of our downtown merchants and will it do nothing to increase the value of our downtown.

Once again it was stated that this project will attract more business because the downtown will be more welcoming. For who? For those who already shop downtown? For those who already work downtown? Comparisons to other communities in our state just don’t work for Concord.

Littleton is a tourist destination. Keene is an oasis in the midst of many rural communities. And Manchester’s downtown is now a business and entertainment district. Concord’s downtown has a large (and hopefully strong) retail component. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Manchester improved their infrastructure, brought in new businesses, created more housing opportunities and provided entertainment venues, all before improving their downtown's streetscape.

We are fortunate to have many state workers in close proximity to the downtown. And we are fortunate for the professional offices that occupy our Main Street. With all those workers at the State office complex off of Pleasant Street and all those professionals occupying our downtown there has to be a demand for market rate and higher end residential housing units. 

Concord continues to put the cart before the horse. Streetscape improvements by themselves will do nothing to increase the property value of our downtown’s real estate. It is improvements to those properties and the higher end reuse of those properties that trigger higher assessments. And without greater income, building owners and tenants won’t be able afford to pay for the proposed Main Street improvements, never mind improvements to their properties.

Baer got it right a second time. He said if we have to slow down and we lose the funding for this grant that there will be other opportunities to use federal dollars in the future. The do it or else approach is a threat that can wreck havoc on our downtown for years to come.

So let’s all take a deep breath and make sure all the stated goals of this project can be met. Without improved economic vitality for the businesses on Main Street nothing else matters.

One final note here: As we get deeper into the committee meetings process, it is apparent that there will be a loss of on street parking. The big question for merchants who will lose parking in front of their businesses, will the replacement parking be close enough or will it hurt their bottom line. It will be interesting to hear the Mayor weigh in on this after promising there would be no loss of parking.