[Winona Online Democracy] I have had a little shop downtown for nearly 5 years now. First on Third St. and now on Second. A couple of observations to think about. Our downtown is largely made up of services, not retail stores.
What use to be nice little stores are now Dental offices, A Clinic, Animal Hospital, Phone Service Centers, Lawyers, Offices, Banks, Print shops, Exercise Salons and so on. To shop in most of the downtown area, you go into a store than have to walk past several buildings occupied by business that are not retail before you come to another store. On one block downtown your have only one retailer the rest are services. On another block you have two retailers on one block but they sit on opposite corners, leaving a whole block of non-retail in-between.There is only one clothing shop and it is all women's. The other issue you face with service businesses occupying so many of the buildings is the parking issue. Businesses outside of retail tend to have more employees than a store would have. A retailer may have 2-3 employees on a give day or time, where a clinic, bank, office will have many more employees. More employees mean occupying more parking spaces and leaving less for shoppers. There is not a lot of area to grow in the downtown. The railroad tracks occupy the nicest area by the levee, so shops cannot be built on the levy. The river beauty cannot be taken advantage of. I, like most tourist or shoppers like the convenience of shopping many stores in a fairly short distance. This is difficult in Downtown Winona, unless service businesses vacate the buildings, it will continue to be difficult. I am not suggesting that the existing businesses leave, I realize we need these businesses as well as the retail to have a thriving downtown. I am just stating my observations and the problems laying before us to growth of the Downtown area. What are people ideas on how to gain retail shop and restaurants? Not to recruit or market them, but to actually have the physical buildings for them to move into. People assume there are alot of empty buildings, but there really is not that many that are appropriate, available and connected to each other. Janice Turek > [Winona Online Democracy] > > _______________________________________________ This message was posted to Winona Online Democracy All messages must be signed by the senders actual name. No commercial solicitations are allowed on this list. To manage your subscription or view the message archives, please visit http://mapnp.mnforum.org/mailman/listinfo/winona Any problems or suggestions can be directed to mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] If you want help on how to contact elected officials, go to the Contact page at http://www.winonaonlinedemocracy.org
