| March 2010 Downtown – the Jewel in the City’s crown
By Joe Wilson
Special to Front Porch
Shortly after becoming a member of the City Council in 2000, I participated in a planning retreat attended by Council members and City staff. We talked about economic development, and it was generally agreed that the City with an area of just over 10 square miles was limited in competing with the surrounding counties for industrial and economic development.
What we did agree on during the conference was that tourism was the primary economic development engine for the City. Tourism dollars are clean dollars, and when the tourists leave, they take their children with them… not leaving them behind to be educated on City tax revenue.
Now to the point:
If Fredericksburg is depending on tourism to generate revenue… what is there to attract tourists? The obvious answer is the draw that our National Civil War battlefields and our Colonial era history provide is what the many history buffs and their families crave.
Another answer is the quaint atmosphere one can enjoy when walking through the downtown area. The old buildings, the antique and specialty shops, along with the many outstanding restaurants, make a weekend excursion to downtown Fredericksburg a memorable experience.
It wasn’t that many years ago that the City was so short on cash that money was borrowed to make payroll. City Council actually discussed reverting to town status, giving up our designation as a City, and becoming a part of Spotsylvania or Stafford County. Central Park saved us from that unsavory situation. Clifton Forge, VA was not so lucky and gave up the right to independence and became part of Allegany County. Now, once again… we find ourselves in a revenue crunch as we see our retail sales revenue fleeing to the new retail outlets in the counties or suffering from the ongoing economic crunch.
Some of the storefronts are beginning to look somewhat “gently worn” and run down. We are seeing more and more storefronts becoming empty. Programs and initiatives aimed at bringing foot traffic to the downtown area are desperately needed.
The Downtown Retail Marketing, Inc. [DRMI is the merchants’ and business organization downtown] and the City’s Economic Development Authority [EDA] should work together to put on events that will bring traffic to the downtown area in the late afternoons and evenings. All one has to do to see the benefit of a well-planned event is to look at the draw Oktoberfest brought to downtown last fall. Over five thousand people came to enjoy the day, bringing children with them. Any event that includes families and children will be wildly successful. All that is needed is imagination, ingenuity and some seed money, which is where the EDA can come into the picture.
Without a vibrant and healthy downtown, Fredericksburg is just like another Northern Virginia suburb… another large subdivision like so many others.
If the time ever comes that Fredericksburg has to revert to a town status to survive and pay its bills, and we do so without a healthy downtown to set us apart from our neighbors… we will have missed a wonderful opportunity to preserve our unique place in this world.
Joe Wilson owns the Wilson Building on Caroline Street, offering residential and retail space.
Editor’s Note: To Joe’s point, downtown looks forward to the annual Marine Corp Half Marathon in May, and welcomes the opening of several new businesses over the next few weeks. The City, the EDA and DRMI are working on 2010 events and projects, and the River Park is progressing toward completion.
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