From AL.com:

The weekend closing of Bruegger’s cafe in the Big Spring Summit office building could spell doom for a proposed condominium tower next door.

The developer, Triad Properties, has until Feb. 8 to have a signed commitment for a 3,000-square-foot restaurant in the Summit office building or forfeit its rights to construct a multi-story condominium next door.

Bruegger’s closing and the year that has nearly elapsed since Triad won a yearlong extension to lure a restaurant has at least one city councilman wary of any forthcoming restaurant commitment.

“My hope is everybody on the council will agree not to give any more options. Let’s just leave the Big Spring Summit on the property and leave the park alone from any private construction in the future,” said City Councilman Bill Kling.

Inserting the restaurant clause was a dumb idea to begin with and blocking the construction of a condo tower is dumber still.  I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, the only way to make Huntsville’s downtown more vibrant is for people, preferably affluent single people, to move there.  As long as it is a transient area it will be hard for it to flourish.

Putting the clause in was a poke in the eye for market forces.  Refusing to let the condo project go forward just helps seal the fate of the downtown area as the place to go - and leave.  It provides a disincentive for restaurants and other businesses to set up shop there because there is no captive market, so to speak; they are reliant on the volatile ebb and flow of people in the area.

The Huntsville Times recently published a column lamenting the tepid atmosphere in downtown:

… [M]ost downtown buildings still hold offices that close at 5 p.m. Worse, for this discussion, is that most of those are storefront attorneys’ offices and the like, meaning there is rarely new street-level space for shops or hangouts.

That almost no one lives downtown to support what is there, although people do live nearby in the historic districts.

That no people means nightlife thrives on the weekends and starves during the week. People from all over head downtown on weekends but, during the week, stop at restaurants and bars closer to Home Sweet Suburb.

How do we keep downtown busy all week so it thrives and grows? How do we get the entertainment, shopping and living zone we all seem to want?

I’ll give the city council a hint: the answer to the Times’ question is not to block the construction of residential property.

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This entry was posted by Brian on Wednesday, January 16th, 2008 at 6:02 am and is filed under Huntsville. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. Please note the copyright policy.