Downtown Winchester’s momentum keeps building

This week I have a hodge­podge of news relat­ed to down­town Winchester.

On Sunday we will see a spe­cial musi­cal treat come to Main Street. The Gold Standard Band, known as a high-ener­gy par­ty and Motown trib­ute band from Atlanta, Georgia, is known for live per­for­mances of clas­sic soul, Motown, and Carolina Beach hits.

The band will give a sum­mer con­cert on the cour­t­house steps Sunday, July 26, from 2 to 4 p.m. Here’s a sam­ple of their music.

Audiences con­sis­tent­ly praise GSB for their enter­tain­ing, pro­fes­sion­al, and dynam­ic per­for­mances. Their shows are designed to cre­ate non­stop danc­ing and singing, mak­ing them a pop­u­lar choice for both pri­vate and pub­lic events.

And speak­ing of the cour­t­house steps, I hap­pened to run into Winchester Commissioner Kitty Strode and Engineering Tech Jesse McCoy in front of the cour­t­house last weekend.

They were dis­cussing replac­ing the aging bench­es on the cour­t­house porch with new bench­es to match the oth­ers recent­ly installed along the recent­ly ren­o­vat­ed high side block. Kitty told me on Tuesday that the new bench­es have already been ordered and should arrive in a few weeks.

That’s what I call effi­cien­cy in local government!

Also recent­ly, I spoke with a local res­i­dent and busi­nessper­son who raised a down­town park­ing con­cern.

After the sheriff’s office moved from its for­mer Broadway loca­tion to Maryland Avenue, many expect­ed the reserved spaces on Broadway and Cleveland Avenue to become pub­lic parking.

Alas, new signs soon went up, mark­ing all of the spaces reserved for oth­er coun­ty officials.

This brings up the ques­tion: With the sheriff’s office gone, why do we still need the same num­ber of reserved park­ing spaces for coun­ty offi­cials as before? There is a fair­ly large­coun­ty employ­ee park­ing lot off Wall Street that should now be able to accom­mo­date remain­ing coun­ty offices downtown.

Alternatively, they could keep the reserved street park­ing and make the Wall Street park­ing lot — par­tial­ly or entire­ly — open to the pub­lic. Because the coun­ty con­trols the park­ing lot but the city con­trols street park­ing, there would need to be some joint deci­sion-mak­ing involved. But isn’t this some­thing we should tackle?

Our down­town has seen new busi­ness­es open at a quick­en­ing pace this year. Shoppers and work­ers down­town need more park­ing. I see no rea­son why the move­ment of the Sheriff’s Department away from down­town shouldn’t open up some more pub­lic parking.

Did you catch our sto­ry about the pub­lic pre­view of the new Winchester Café and the vis­it of pool leg­end Earl Strickland? If not, you should check it out.

We will also have a new sto­ry lat­er this week about last Friday’s grand open­ing of Kettle & Quill Bookstore. You have to see this place. It is a feast for the eyes!

I am excit­ed about the renais­sance of Winchester’s his­toric down­town as a shop­ping, enter­tain­ment, and din­ing des­ti­na­tion. The amount of mon­ey invest­ed over the last few years in Main Street by gov­ern­ment, pri­vate devel­op­ers, and entre­pre­neurs is impres­sive. And it speaks to the faith placed in the future of Winchester.

Finally, a rep­re­sen­ta­tive of DAM Holdings told me just yes­ter­day that all of the new apart­ments recent­ly devel­oped in their build­ing at the south end of the high side block have been leased. 

Are we see­ing not only the rebirth of the com­mer­cial sec­tor down­town but also, it’s re-emer­gence as a place to live?