Sunday, November 08, 2009
Metro columnist Dan Casey: Don't tarnish market jewel
Dan Casey is The Roanoke Times' metro columnist.
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@roanoke.com
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Dan Casey
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If you've watched the gradual evolution of Roanoke's downtown market area over the past 30 years, you're aware of a dramatic change for the better.
The market was once a best-avoided and gritty part of town infested with drunks and prostitutes drawn there by beer joints, greasy spoons and at least one adult bookstore.
Today, it teems with customers and vendors who sell inexpensive meals, fresh food, flowers and handmade soap, jewelry and other arts and crafts. There's also a grand hotel, a striking Taubman Museum of Art, the O. Winston Link Museum and some "nice" restaurants, too.
National magazines tout the market as a historic jewel. That publicity, no doubt, draws out-of-town visitors.
But they're not the only ones crowding its sidewalks on weekdays and Saturdays.
Valley residents flock there, too. Many of them are apartment dwellers who are part of Roanoke's continuing renaissance in downtown living. The market's rebirth was a prime driver of that.
In short, the 30-year evolution has created a place that's worthwhile for both visitors and Roanoke Valley residents.
But big changes are coming, and they can have far-reaching consequences for the short- and long-term future of downtown.
Next year, the construction barriers will rise around the Roanoke City Market as the city embarks on a long-overdue major face-lift. Mom and pop vendors in its food court will be forced into new locations or out of business.
Later, many of the outdoor vendors will have to leave or temporarily relocate during renovations at Center in the Square. They're already eyeing a city-owned downtown parking lot as a temporary home.
For two years, at the least, those projects will drain the market of its signature quality, its vibrancy.
In the short term, both city officials and Downtown Roanoke Inc. must make great efforts to ensure that those inside and outside downtown vendors return. Because much of the market's vibrancy comes from that diverse array of real-life characters.
The longer-term implications are even more profound. In that respect, I offer up the example of the City Dock area of Annapolis, Md., my hometown.
City Dock was at one time a "gritty" place with an ugly gas station, taxi stand, a five-and-dime, a market building, a grocery store and a handful of dive bars.
Watermen tied up their dilapidated work boats there and cussed as they shoveled oysters onto the dock.
Local mom and pop retailers, a drugstore and a movie theater lined Main Street, which begins at City Dock. It was a "real" downtown to the people who lived in the greater Annapolis area.
Over two decades, more or less, the city made many improvements to City Dock and Main Street.
Spurred in part by those, and by national magazine articles and other factors, Annapolis gained cachet. The tourists began coming and the big changes began.
The gas station and grocery store and dive bars closed. Gradually, fat cats and their big expensive yachts drove out those salty watermen.
The city shut down and renovated its market building, forcing the old tenants out. None returned. The value of the dock-area real estate soared, and so did rents.
Many mom and pop businesses moved out or simply closed. "Nice" restaurants, along with shops that sold overpriced ice cream and tourist trinkets, moved in.
So did Burger King, chain retailers like Banana Republic and Gap, and a whole bunch of minimum-wage jobs serving tourists.
There were points during this evolution when downtown Annapolis was a great place for both living and visiting. But those days are long gone.
Now it's just a great place to visit. The unfortunate truth is, Annapolis traded huge chunks of its authenticity for big money that hordes of tourists carried in by the sackful.
Nobody wants this to happen to downtown Roanoke, of course. Nobody expects Subway, Taco Bell , Sbarro pizza and Krystal burger stands in the market building five years from now.
That includes city officials, indoor and outdoor vendors, and the folks who operate Downtown Roanoke Inc. I talked with a bunch of them last week.
But nobody "designed" what happened to downtown Annapolis either. Market commerce has an organic quality that changes and evolves as quickly as the flu virus.
Like a freight train loaded with coal and headed down a mountain, it's really hard to stop once it starts.
Just something to think about before the market-area construction begins.
