For more than three years, I've watched that retail space sit empty. I kept hearing, "they're just waiting for the Art Museum to open and then they'll have something in there." Guess what? The Art Museum is open for business but the retail space certainly isn't.
I'm not saying that we should throw a McDonald's in there just to fill the space, but shouldn't we have had a tenant or two by now? I realize that Starbucks is a four-letter word to some downtown folks (I guess there is actually one SB open off High Street in one of the downtown U of A buildings) and I wouldn't want a SB there anyway with Maiden Lane across the street, but isn't there somebody out there who wants to move in next door to our TV offices?
I just keep imagining Artsy munchkins arriving in town by the flying houseful to view the Emerald City in all its splendor ... yet Dorothy and the Tin Man have to see the storefront-with-no-store on their way to see the wizard.
Maybe it's just me. Maybe it's supposed to be "negative space" and the empty store front is "bridging the old with the new" by showing what once happened when stores went out of business before Don Drumm made the sun came up one morning for an economic renaissance for the entire town.
At this point I just keep wondering that if "three years and a giant new Art Museum can't get any takers for that spot, what will?"
As a total aside .. just thought I'd mention this article. It's written by a reporter from Missouri whose spending an entire week in Akron to cover a brother and sister from the paper's hometown who are both racing in the Soap Box Derby. Nice to see media from other states making the commitment to this awesome event. Who knows! If the paper likes Akron enough, I know just the empty space they could use to open a bureau!?!?!
2 comments:
Why is it the city is so paranoid about putting a simple Starbucks downtown? Do they really think it makes sense to blow off the business taxes and employment taxes they could generate by allowing the chains to come in and actually serve the people? If this is the way City Hall wants to do business maybe they should be packing us all a baloney sandwich for our lunchbox each day. Let US decide what we want -- last time we checked, the marketplace decided by customers was the American way. Since when did Summit go Soviet?
I would rather see a Starbucks downtown rather than in the new Highland Square buildings.
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