Capitol Times, October 1982, pp. 10-13.
Downtown Cheyenne was the only place to shop in 1960, but today [1982] it is feeling the hard times of the current recession and the flight of stores to outlying areas.
Two decades ago, [1962] 440 businesse were located the downtown (15th to 20th streets, Evans to O’Neil). Today, [1982] only 315 are left. Some of the buildings occupied by business establishments in 1960 were torn down and replaced by parking lots or large office buildings. But a discouraging number of the buildings in the area–one in five–are empty. The figures are of real concern to merchants and landowners in the 40-square block downtown.
While the 20 percent vacancy rate is considerably above the nine percent recorded in 1960, it is actually an improvement from 1970 when more than one in four downtown buildings were unoccupied. The 23-year trend is illustrated by what happened along 16th Street (west from Central Avenue). In 1960 there were 84 businesses with West 16th Street addresses. The figure was down to 62 in 1970. It is just 49 today.
But the vacancy rates along that street show a different story. In 1960 there were no vacant buildings listed in that year’s city directory, but ten years later, there were 20 empty street level structures. Now, despite the difficult economy and presence of malls on the city’s edges, almost all of the buildings on West 16th street are occupied. Parking lots and larger office buildings have replaced many of the buildings that were listed as empty in the 1970 directory.
Buildings occupied the site where the City Center Parking Lot is now located. In 1960 most of them were listed as vacant. One businessman in the area recalled that the titles to most of those building were held by out-of-town owners. “They weren’t exactly absentee landlords,” he said. “They had lived here for many years and had retired to other cities. He noted that they had “quickly lost touch with economic conditions here and had unreal expectations of what they could receive in rents for their buildings.”
The issue of absentee landlords in the downtown area is more difficult to gauge today, thanks mostly to corporate business structures and unrecorded managerial agreements, but it is unlikely that out-of-town ownership plays a significant role in today’s downtown, although specific cases still exist.
Unlike the downtown retail store paces, downtown office buildings have always enjoyed nearly total occupancy. The specific buildings in which most offices are housed have changed over the years. In 1960, for example, the Plains Hotel housed 27 offices; by 1970, there were fewer than a half dozen there. While an exact count of the number of professional offices downtown at any given time is nearly impossible, the percentage of such offices still located downtown probably has not changed in 23 years. Professionals still seem to prefer offices downtown near the majority of financial institutions, city and county government offices and state government offices.
Retail businesses outside the downtown area (principally along Greeley Highway, Logan Avenue, East and West Lincolnway, Yellowstone and the malls) have shown a steady increase since 1960, according to a count taken from the city directories. Nearly three times as many business houses were located downtown in 1960 than those outside that area. By 1970 downtown stores were only twice as numerous as outlying retail outlets. Today the figures indicate that downtown businesses are actually outnumbered by those located elsewhere in the city.
Can this trend be reversed or stabilized? Downtown merchants, many of whom are members of the newly created Cheyenne Downtown Association, believe that it can. A number of problems will have to be addressed first and the association has committees studying many of the problems the downtown merchants have in common.
Parking is a key element in the downtown’s future although some businessmen say it isn’t as critical as some people think. “The Downtown City Center lot between Carey and Pioneer 16th and 17th) is nearly always able to accommodate a few more cars,” one merchant observed. Many stores in the area will stamp a lot ticket so that their customers are spared from paying for up to an hour of parking. “That should be sufficient incentive for people who don’t want to pay to park downtown,” another storeowner observed.
Many of the old buildings downtown were demolished over the years to make room for parking lots, but people still complain of “no parking spots” near their destinations. “People will walk a lot farther in the parking lots of the malls,” one merchant argued, “but they don’t realize how far they have walked because they don’t have blocks to count.”
Some downtown shoppers complain about always having to “feed the meters.” The downtown association has encouraged store employees to park somewhere other than the store they work in. The association also has worked with the city government to develop a policy of “meter-less Saturdays” in order to entice “meter-haters” back downtown.
But the main issue facing the association is the empty stores. While the “voids” may be more noticeable to neighboring merchants than to downtown shoppers, one businessman said he noticed a foot traffic drop-off soon after a couple of the major retailers moved. “Unquestionably, their loss hurt the downtown,” he said.
A downtown association committee is formulating plans for a “central clearinghouse” for information about available downtown locations in order to tell prospective businesses of sites that may exactly meet their needs. Plans to “dress up” empty store windows with displays–helping to dispel the “gloomy sight” of an empty store” are also under study.
Private sector boosts from such organizations as the Cheyenne Downtown Association may be the only long-term solution to downtown’s ills. Government help is unlikely and prospects for new city projects downtown are dim. Mayor Don Erickson told the association members at their annual dinner meeting in August that he did not “want to see public money pumped into downtown.” Besides, many business owners are skeptical that city projects would be much help anyway. One businessman noted that the city should “maintain the existing projects better and not try to spend more money on new projects. ” He argued that “it is not surprising that people are not attracted to the area when the city plants little trees that can’t possibly survive, never replaces the dead one, an puts up ornamental lighting that they don’t bother to keep in working order.” He pointed to broken curbing outside his store and the weeds growing through cracks in the concrete at city-maintained places. “These are some of the things that the city can do to help us,” he asserted.
If help from city government is remote, federal and state funding are also unlikely. Designation of the entire downtown area as a historic districts meets with mixed reviews from merchants and property owners. “The malls aren’t historic,” one businessman pointed out, “and people enjoy shopping in areas that have a historic charm.” But another merchant, evidently believing that it would somehow adversely reflect on the merchandise he dealt in, said, “I don’t want my building called a historic site.”
Historic designation would have the most value in the form of tax incentives for property owners. As one owner put it,” You have to be making a lot of money before tax rebates will do you any good.”
The emphasis could have to be on private capital because downtown historic preservation projects where federal dollars are directly used for preservation fell victim to federal budget cuts in recent months. It is unlikely that funds for such programs will be restored by Congress in the near future.
Direct state funding for preservation of downtown areas is a long-shot possibility. A committee appointed by the governor in recent moths is studying the practicality and expense of such a state program and at least one legislator has said he would support state funding for downtown preservation.
But demands for state funds will come from other quarters in the coming legislative session. Most observers believe that historic preservation projects will be far down on the legislature’s priority list when such areas as social services for the need and education programs must be given state funds to replace the federal dollars no longer received for such critical public needs.
So what lies ahead for downtown Cheyenne? Is it on the threshold of a renaissance or about to go down for the count?
It still has advantages not shared by other shopping areas in the city. A shopper spends more on gasoline to reach the malls, at least from most sectors of the city. The “one-way streets” downtown have improved the traffic flow and fewer traffic bottlenecks exist there than elsewhere, particularly near the malls.
The majority of offices are still located there and the office workers often shop downtown during their lunch hours or return there to shop in the evenings or on weekends because they become familiar with what is available there.
One merchant observed that “if the nightlife is good, the daytime crowds will follow,” and the downtown has a number of active clubs that offer a variety of entertainment.
There may even be a long-term advantage in the 20 percent vacancy rate. Perhaps it will reduce the price of rent and encourage smaller, homed-owned business to located downtown. One storeowner said he didn’t want downtown to become “just a bunch of arts and crafts shops.” But with the larger retailers already located in new buildings at the city edges, it is unlikely that they can be enticed back. The specialty shops, galleries, boutiques and small owner-operated shops (plus offices, bars and restaurants) might be what will save the downtown.
A common three-phase pattern can be discerned from studying central business districts of many cities. During the first phase, all goods and services for a community are sold in the downtown area. In the second phase, the buildings deteriorate to such a degree that they are no longer satisfactory to profitable retail businesses. Finally at a certain point when rents have decreased and vacancy levels become extremely high, small shops come back to downtown. The 1960, 1970 and current vacancy numbers may indicate that Cheyenne’s downtown is already in that third phase and has been since sometime in the 1970s.
Ultimately, the life or death of downtown comes down to one business truth–a business has to be competitive to survive. Prices, service, convenience , and quality have to be there for the customer. Rent, labor and maintenance must still leave money for a profit. Whether the shop sells art supplies or furniture, it still comes down to their abilities to compete.Can downtown continue to compete and, thus, survive? One businessman said, “It’s too early to tell. The jury is still