Nearly two decades after the idea was first officially discussed, Concord’s Main Street restoration project is all but complete. It’s a civic triumph.
Now, rather than rest on success until it grows shabby and then empty, as happened for a time with Eagle and Bicentennial squares, the city and its residents should see Main Street as a beginning not an end.
The planning process for the project was prolonged and public. Scores of people contributed ideas. Merchants were patient during construction. The project’s contractor, Severino Trucking, was exemplary, a word seldom used in an era when cut corners and busted budgets seem more the rule than the exception with public projects. Severino completed the job expertly, on time and under budget, and did it with care and consideration that was almost swashbuckling. It is a justly proud team.
To protect its investment, $4.7 million in federal funds and $6 million-plus in local revenue, Mayor Jim Bouley and the council permanently funded what they call a three-person red carpet team whose job is to keep Main Street looking beautiful. No backsliding allowed.
It’s too soon to tell how the project will affect the economies of Main Street and the city, but it does seem like many more people are visiting downtown. It certainly increased developer interest in meeting the desire of a growing number of people who want to live downtown.
The once decrepit Vegas Building at the intersection of North Main and Loudon Road will soon house 20 market-rate apartments and the former Sacred Heart Church is being converted to 10 high-end condominiums two blocks from Main Street. Similar side street redevelopment will continue.
The coming year should see two major drivers of downtown momentum. Developers have begun showing more and more interest in the city-owned former Employment Security Building across from Gibson’s Bookstore. At the other end of Main Street, expect the extension of Storrs Street to Horseshoe Pond to begin. Design work is under way but agreement still needs to be reached with the owners of the rail corridor.
One of the goals of the Main Street Project was to make Concord more attractive to motorists on Interstate 93 and convince them to stop and dine or shop. One very doable plan called for lighting the upper stories of Main Street buildings in ways that could be changed to reflect seasons, holidays or just for variety. The funds to do that have already been budgeted, should the council and property owners decide to go forward.
We would like to see the city experiment by permitting a limited number of street vendors to make use of Main Street’s broad sidewalks. Downtown might support, for example, a hot pretzel cart or one that sold candied nuts and popcorn. It would also be nice to see the State House open on a few more Saturdays next year and a kiosk on the State House Plaza that explains the capitol’s history and what goes on in it. Civics lessons are sorely needed these days and hard to come by.
When a downtown fails, as many did during the era of suburbs and shopping malls, the blight spreads outward. The reverse has now begun in Concord. The progress on Main Street has spread north and south, to side streets, and slowly upward, to the long unused upper floors of downtown buildings.
That’s a very good thing.