Inside 43215: Downtown Lifestyles
JUST IN TIME
Every passing day seems to fly faster than the previous one. What happened to those long summer days as kids hanging around on the front porch with friends complaining that there was nothing to do? Exasperated moms shooed us off to ride bikes with warnings that life would never be this carefree again. What did these old crotchety women know anyway?
Turns out they knew quite a bit. Those days disappeared not long after and the weekends soon followed. Time seems to vanish whether embraced or frittered away.
We steal snippets of time when we run a quick errand during lunch or after work. That’s one of the best things about working downtown – everything is in walking distance. We can get our eyes checked at Rinkov Eye Center on Gay Street, grab a cell phone at Verizon at 262 S. Third Street or pick up a snazzy shirt and a pair of slacks for our favorite guy at Justin Harvey at 10 W. Broad Street, Suite 150.
Seeing stores like this downtown shows us the possibilities and what just may be on the horizon.
“Downtown Columbus is the largest untapped retail market in Central Ohio,” says Chris Boring, President of Boulevard Strategies, who conducted an extensive study of downtown’s consumer markets and potential retail spending.
Retail recruiter Kacey Campbell is a matchmaker of sorts as she helps facilitate efforts to attract new business downtown. Downtown may not be the place for big national chains, but with a captive audience of 100,000 downtown worker bees and more than 65,000 neighboring residents, it provides a marketable proposition for start-ups and businesses looking to expand.
Comment here to share your thoughts on what retail spots you want to see downtown.
Tags: Chris Boring, Justin Harvey, Retail, Rinkov Eye Center, Verizon
May 25th, 2010 at 9:57 am
Would love to see West Elm move from Easton to downtow, also more clothing stores.
May 25th, 2010 at 10:38 am
I am a BIG fan of true urbanism and successful urban neighborhoods. Synergy and density are both really important. Here on Gay Street, we do have a great mix of service, hospitality and residential. Mission identity is working in our favor here. This is a great area for an all-purpose visit should your needs include signage, copies, glasses or a print job – and you can visit some great restaurants while you wait and top it off with a dessert from Sugardaddies. All in all, a very satisfying visit to a purpose-driven area. Duplicate the synergy/density with a different purpose & you have still yet another self-supporting mini-neighborhood. That said, a number of resident support stations might be nice. I mean the kind of one-stop shop to assist in NOT needing a car to get the basics. We also need to pump up civic pride and say that yes, we do have tourists, and we should have obnoxious knick-knack stores for those that need to remember the visit with a Tip-Top refrigerator magnet. I really would not mind the return of familiar fast-food as well. Obviously, they all ran into a common difficulty that must be identified and mitigated.
To further my point, New York has a Garment District, a lighting district, SoHo, the Bowery, and so on. Once people can brand an area with a concept then it can be marketed as “an (insert idea) and so much more…” Ideally, the hand of the development commission should be as invisible as possible, but we have enough vacancy to pair power-partner businesses & prime the pump for success.
May 25th, 2010 at 11:16 am
Not sure that fast food is such a good idea as there is semi-fast that is also good food here. What ideas for a replacement restaurant are there (where SFO was) for the Capitol Square Building? I’m thinking Adriaticos should start up another place (the equipment is still in the restaurant). Also, would like to be able to get a decent haircut downtown at lunchtime vs. traveling to Bexley, Short North, etc.
May 25th, 2010 at 12:09 pm
I really miss the old news stands, record(!) stores and book shops I had nearby when living in Chicago. I know the margins are terrible, but if someone could do a mash-up of those I’d love to kill some time there. I order a lot of stuff off the web now, mainly because I don’t have quirky, small, “experiential” places that I used to visit available.
May 27th, 2010 at 9:45 am
Shoes, natural foods, pet supplies, furniture, clothing, books, computer supplies, gift items…… we could use stores that sell all of these items. How about a coffee shop open at night?
May 31st, 2010 at 3:10 pm
We can talk about how untapped Downtown retail is and how the city hired a retail recruiter to attract more businesses and that we should all be so excited, but the thing is that this potential is never going to be tapped no matter what our retail recruiter does because of some fundamental errors in our urban environment that need to be addressed. If the city wants that changed so that our retail recruiter will be able to successfully do her job without that hindrance, then the city is free to hire me to make that happen. The simple fact is that in order for urban businesses to thrive and multiply a good urban environment is a requirement, it is not optional.
June 2nd, 2010 at 2:06 pm
I love the ideas and enthusiasm. BenJor – all great suggestions that are needed. I’d love to see a natural food store and/or permanent extension of the Pearl Market. As for the coffee shop, let’s encourage Cafe Brioso to stay open into the evenings as a start. How about getting a group of friends to hang out there some evening? You get the crew, I’ll nudge Jeff the owner.
And stay tuned Mike Brown, there’s a shop opening that addresses one of your desires!
@ Columbusite: I respectfully disagree with you. I’d like to know what types of “fundamental errors in our urban environment” must be changed in order for a small business to open downtown? We are seeing businesses opening in downtown on a regular basis. Sure, it’s true there could be a more ideal situation to make my job easier but isn’t that the case with any job? In my mind, the biggest hurdle is getting small starter space for retailers like Pearl Market vendors who are ready to secure permanent space, but that is in works.
To be clear, the retail recruitment is a private sector initiative led by Capital Crossroads SID with support from the city. I’m not a city employee.
The recruitment program is a team effort and if you have great ideas, I’d love to hear them! Thanks for the comments and always feel free to contact me. kacampbell@sidservices.com.