On a Sunday evening in July, we are looking south on Albany’s Broadalbin Street, and a pleasant view it is. The horizontal lines of stately buildings all point to the Linn County Courthouse four blocks away. And it looks like the prosperous center of a small American town. What we cannot see are trends that may threaten to make the image look deceiving, like Potemkin’s villages.
For more than a dozen years, Albany has worked to promote — and spent money on — revitalizing the central part of the city, especially the old commercial downtown. Giving assistance to the restoration of the old bank building on the left as a fine restaurant was part of that effort, as was the reconstruction of the streetscape itself. But elsewhere on this street and on others nearby, storefronts yawn empty with big signs: For rent or lease.
Just now, the Central Albany Revitalization Area (CARA) is considering a request to provide scholarships of $2,000 each to downtown business people who enroll in a business development program at Linn-Benton Community College. The hope is that this will result in more stores and other small enterprises starting up and lasting a good long time.
I wonder, though, whether the trends of our times have made such efforts futile. Unless I’m mistaken, the universal trend is to conduct commerce online. A growing share of the public seems to have no time to go to a shop to look for merchandise and buy it on the spot. It seems much easier to go online, consider unlimited choices, find the right item and wait a day or two for UPS to bring it to the door.
In the photo here, you may see the trend if you visit the bank building on the right. When it was still the First National Bank, many years ago, it was full of employees. Walk in there now and the few remaining staffers seem to rattle around in all that space. Wells Fargo and all other big banks do all they can to push their customers to make transactions online. Pretty soon, why have branches at all?
A men’s wear store will open here, for “natty dressers.”
Under the circumstances, you have to admire the few brave souls determined to swim against the stream, such as Oscar and Tamalynne Hult. Last spring they were approved for a $10,000 CARA grant to help them remodel a storefront in the Masonic Temple on West First Avenue and open, come September, “The Natty Dresser,” a traditional men’s wear store complete with a shoe-shine stand.
The photo of Broadalbin was taken on a Sunday when just about everything was closed. So there was no risk to life or limb in calmly standing in the middle of First Avenue to snap photos. What I worry about is that the lack of traffic may one day last all week and that technology and changing public habits may thwart all the efforts to revive commercial life downtown. I hope I’m wrong about this. If not, then like the adviser of Russia’s Catherine the Second, we will have set up pleasant facades mostly for show. (hh)
UPDATE: On July 17, the CARA advisory board voted 6-4 against the request to fund scholarships for business people attending a nine-month course at the Small Business Development Center at Linn-Benton Community College. But the opponents implied they would support the request if it was revised to ask for loans instead of $2,100 grants per person, if it was presented to the city council, and if all Albany business people were made eligible rather than just those inside the urban renewal district. (hh)
“If not, then like the adviser of Russia’s Catherine the Second, we will have set up pleasant facades mostly for show.”
Even if they evolve primarily to “facades,” they will be supporting the dreamers (albeit iconoclasts) who deserve our support for their efforts to survive as a small business.
Having opened and run my own business after being with a national chain store, it is a very-good-feeling when you lock the doors at closing knowing you have helped some customers. If your hard work makes it to the bottom line — all the better. Selling a product of any kind is not for faint of heart – and not many are suited to it. To that end, most starting businesses do fail. That has always been the case — brick & mortar stores or online ethereal presence.
If solid business information helps a startup succeed and that helps to keep a business from going under — it’s all good…
Preservation or modernization? Consumers decided this one long ago. Like you implied, just look around town and you’ll see what consumers want. It’s not downtown. But Albany government has steadfastly refused to acknowledge this reality. It boils down to politics and money. As long as we continue to elect dinosaurs and allow them to waste public money we’ll be trapped in this death spiral. It’s time for a change.
Sadly even with all their grants and attempts to re-vitalize downtown Albany I think that more and more the scene you depict will become more of the norm than it does a Sunday afternoon view. It’s not a whole lot different at 7-8 p.m. through the week. They’re never going to get the “community” feeling they’re striving for until there are more places that wage earners will be willing to live in. Gone are the days where business owners and/or employees lived over or near their stores/restaurants. The people that dole out the revitalization dollars don’t seem to be willing to live there. Maybe some leadership by example is needed.
Ronald Reagan had something to say about “urban renewal” (8:25 mark on the following video). This is where Reagan’s famous, “The more the plans fail, the more the planners plan” saying came from.
Reagan specifically mentions a multi million dollar urban renewal complex built to house low income people – reminds me of the IHI – almost totally government funded – housing complex we have going up in Albany…
Reagan was right about urban renewal – our city council is wrong…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnkSXosZhic&feature=em-share_video_user
Although I sense some sadness in Hasso’s comments reality has a way of changing opinions. The $10,000 gift to start a men’s clothing store w/shoe shine was given not because of a cogent business plan but because of Mr. Hult’s long service to the downtown association. I look forward to better use of UR money e.g. fire and police buildings to serve
the needs of every Albany resident. Hasso’s comments should give guidance.
Our mayor’s dream is a promenade from 4th down to Water Ave on Broadalbin St.. To take out a total of about 21 parking places. Eight parking spaces are already lost to the present promenade. Don’t see that it has had much use up to now. So where are future customers to park if the mayor gets her wish?
Does that Vault restaurant pay for placing tables on “our” promenade? JE