Sunday, January 14, 2007
Editorial: Downtown Blacksburg loses another anchor
The downtown's future is in shoppers' hands.
From the RoundTable blog
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Blacksburg residents will soon lose another downtown store. The Easy Chair Bookstore recently announced plans to relocate to University Mall. This most recent blow to the flagging downtown should alarm residents. Their quaint town core could soon become little more than a ghost town haunted at night by bar-hopping Virginia Tech students.
Easy Chair's departure is a particularly hard blow. Independent bookstores are a staple of college towns across the nation.
Not that anyone can blame its owners. It is not their job to prop up downtown. They base decisions on what is best for their business. At the new location, they will be adjacent to their Easy Chair Coffee Shop. Hopefully, the proximity will generate new synergy and business success.
That makes it no less painful. Downtown has lost a number of prominent businesses recently, including the Record Exchange, Crossroads CDs, Extreme Pita and Touchdown Subs. They could not succeed in a location with high rents relative to the rest of the region, declining foot traffic and competition from the chain stores in Christiansburg.
Stakeholders have mobilized to try to reverse the trend. Merchant groups are working to promote downtown. Flyers, shopping guides and such can only go so far, though. The same goes for the town council. Downtown vitality was one of the top issues in last spring's council election, but there is only so much elected officials can do.
One concrete measure that might help would be for Tech to level the playing field for eateries. Restaurants on campus need not pay the same taxes as their downtown competitors.
Tech must compete for students among other schools, and a vibrant downtown is an excellent selling point. Boarded up windows will not appeal to prospective students and their families.
The most potent agents of change, however, are the citizens of Blacksburg. If they want a nice downtown, the sort of place that is pleasant to grab lunch or stroll through in the evening, they must choose to patronize the businesses. Now is the time for consumers to vote with their dollars before a special place is lost.
