Downtowns define the 'heart' of communities

Having a vibrant downtown is important to any community because it’s typically the historic base and provides an identity for a city or town, experts say.

With Anderson preparing to celebrate its 150th anniversary in 2015, the city’s downtown has few residents and a paucity of dining and entertainment options. Decades have passed since Anderson's downtown was the retail center of Madison County.

Today, downtown Anderson is home to local government agencies and the legal and banking professions. Only a handful of restaurants and businesses remain in the downtown area, which is bordered by Fifth Street south to the railroad tracks and from Brown-Delaware to Central Avenue.

Housing in the downtown area decreased with the closing of the Tower and Delaware Court apartments, reducing foot traffic in the area. The Tower Place recently reopened and is seeking tenants, a sign that revitalization may be on the horizon, local leaders hope.

Importance of downtown

Representatives of national and state organizations trying to reinvigorate city centers agree that a bustling downtown is crucial to most communities.

“A vibrant downtown is important for several reasons,” said Shelia Grant, editor of the Downtown Idea Exchange with the New Jersey-based Downtown Research & Development Center. “Without a downtown area the city becomes generic; they all look the same. If you drive down an alley, you don’t know where you are.”

To Grant, a downtown is the identity of the community. It’s the base of a city's history; if a downtown is lost, so is the history.

“A good downtown has a mix of residential, retail, restaurants and historic buildings that includes unified architecture and green spaces for people to gather,” she explained.

Matt Greller, executive director of the Indiana Association of Cities and Towns, stresses the importance of downtowns in attracting young professionals who can pump money into the local economy.

“Today 50 percent of college graduates know where they want to live before graduating,” he said. “If we don’t have the amenities to attract them, there will be a population decline and businesses won’t locate in a community.”

A downtown, according to Greller, must have restaurants, shops, public spaces, festivals and weekend events. He considers all of these offerings critical to attracting top graduates and the companies that employ them.

“You have to start small and build on successes,” he explained. “There has to be an investment from the public sector.”

Greller offered this example of how a community can revitalize its downtown: It could fund the demolition of a vacant building to make a public park, which could lead to private investment in a sidewalk café and other businesses.

“There is a snowball effect,” he said of public-sector investments.

Michael Burayidi, chairman of the Department of Urban Planning at Ball State University, said the health of downtown is a barometer for the health of the entire community.

“If you have annual parades, you don’t have them at a shopping mall, they are in the downtown area,” he noted. “The downtown is the heart of the community. If the heart is weak, the entire community suffers.”

Burayidi said a downtown is the showcase of a community. The downtown is where civic leaders go for entertainment.

“When I was in Wisconsin, Sheboygan would bring developers to the city and they would show them the outlying residential areas,” he said. “The investors wanted to see the downtown. You can’t avoid the downtown.”

Sheybogan, a northern Wisconsin city of 49,000 located along Lake Michigan, was revitalized recently through a concerted effort to build a harbor front, an entertainment district and an arts and culture area. Each district is defined by specific streetscapes from a riverwalk to decorative light poles. Dozens of art installations went up in 2012, too.

On a closer level, Kokomo has added four new housing developments in the downtown area in the last two years and more are in the planning stage.

“You have to look at trends,” Mayor Greg Goodnight said. “Baby boomers and millennials (people born between 1980 and 1990) want to live in urban areas with mixed-use neighborhoods.”

A viable downtown must be walkable with attractive sidewalks, landscaping, a plaza or park for events and civic and cultural amenities.

“It’s important to do away with one-way streets,” Burayidi said. “In the 1970s, there was a push for one-way streets; they should be changed to two-way streets. Studies have proven that property values are higher on two-way streets.”

One-way streets are prevalent in downtown Anderson.

Downtowns are sources of civic pride, according to Shae Kmicikewycz, program manager for Indiana Main Street of the Indiana Office of Community and Rural Affairs.

“It is the greatest source of pride for a community, a sense of place, of history, it is the heart of a community,” she said. “It is also a great indicator of the overall economic vitality of a community. As businesses look to locate in a community, they can tell a lot about the overall economic condition based on the condition of the downtown.

“Are there a number of vacant storefronts? Are buildings cared for? Taking care of the downtown area shows there is pride in the community and that there are community and economic development possibilities.”

Housing essential

Even with infrastructure improvements, a city can't capitalize on its downtown without drawing residents, who in turn generate business.

“Housing is critical to get ‘feet on the street’ to support local businesses,” Grant said. “The housing has to be close to the downtown businesses and events to make it an attractive place to live.

Greller advocates a "mixed-use" approach. Retail shops, restaurants and events can combine to bring people downtown regularly.

Burayidi noted another reason why downtown residents are important: “It puts eyes on the street, which helps to prevent crime.”

Kmicikewycz stresses a range of housing opportunities, and encourages cities not to overlook existing buildings. An example in Anderson would be the Tower Place apartments.

“Many downtowns have beautiful homes within the downtown," he said, "but it's also important to utilize upper stories in downtown buildings for apartments and lofts.

“Housing was always an element to successful downtowns, even as cities and towns began to build themselves. Store owners typically lived above their store, so housing was an important piece of sustainability of a building and community. There is so much discussion these days about green buildings and green development. ... The greenest building is one that has already been built, and those are the buildings we have in the downtown.”

Getting the word out

A downtown should have an identifying theme or vision that makes it a place people want to visit, according to some experts. It should become a destination for the community and for outsiders, as well.

“It’s important to have a brand, some kind of recognition of the downtown area,” Grant explained, turning his attention to Anderson. “If the White River is to be a focal point, there needs to be signage and logos that speak of water. There should be more access to the water.”

Communities can capitalize on natural assets. In Anderson, that would be the White River, as well as the city's thousands of trees and green spaces.

“There could be walking and biking trails along the White River,” Greller said. “Public spaces should be created where people can gather and enjoy the scenic beauty of the river.”

Anderson has developed such a walking trail along the river. White River Trace stretches now from 8th and Raible Avenue to the blue John F. Kennedy Bridge of Character.

While the experts quoted in this article believe strongly in the concept of downtown revitalization, they note that such efforts will fail if the community isn't invested.

“Everyone has a vested interest in the downtown whether they own a building or business, shop downtown, go to the courthouse, or just drive through it,” Kmicikewycz said. “The impact of a successful and healthy downtown creates a ripple effect to businesses outside of the downtown because it gives visitors and shoppers more opportunities of finding what they are looking for and giving them more reasons to visit a community."