The path to saving downtown: enact and enforce codes, improve infrastructure, promote year-round activity

The fol­low­ing com­men­tary is adapt­ed from a mes­sage deliv­ered to the Winchester City Commission on January 16, 2024, on behalf of the author, Laura Freeman.

I’m not only a build­ing own­er in down­town Winchester. I’m also a busi­ness own­er and entre­pre­neur, build­ing busi­ness­es to trans­fer to the next gen­er­a­tion. These are the young peo­ple this town needs. These are the young peo­ple who need a rea­son to stay. It is by their work that this town will thrive. 

Our busi­ness is Mt. Folly Enterprise, which owns Laura’s Mercantile, The Mercantile on Main, and Regeneration Distillery. My build­ings are 1 South Main and 31 East Broadway.

I can’t stress enough that the prof­itabil­i­ty of down­town busi­ness­es and the demise of down­town build­ings are con­nect­ed. One prob­lem can’t be solved with­out the other.

In my case, nei­ther of our busi­ness­es would have a chance of being prof­itable if we did not have a mail order arm or a liquor dis­tri­b­u­tion arm. Let me say that anoth­er way: a busi­ness along the mod­el of the Hook and Eye, Rosenthal’s, Bloomfields — the busi­ness­es I grew up with — no longer work here. Why? Not near­ly enough peo­ple come down­town. This fact alone makes it hard to fill the emp­ty storefronts.

The cost of bring­ing these build­ings back is sub­stan­tial. I’m approach­ing half a mil­lion dol­lars invest­ed in my prop­er­ty at 1 South Main and haven’t fin­ished. The prop­er­ty at 31 East Broadway took more than a quar­ter of a mil­lion dol­lars. But the invest­ment in the busi­ness­es — what it takes to get them up and going — has been more than those building’s repair costs com­bined. Given the costs, we need to find a way for down­town busi­ness­es to prof­it, so land­lords, even patient ones, can make a return. There is sub­stan­tial risk.

What is the solu­tion to this conundrum?

First, the city should enforce require­ments that cur­rent build­ing own­ers — many of whom are prof­itable busi­ness peo­ple or real estate investors — main­tain their build­ings or sell them. If the build­ings are dete­ri­o­rat­ing, not to code, and are not sold in some des­ig­nat­ed time peri­od, the city needs to have some legal mech­a­nism to achieve com­mu­ni­ty goals.

In addi­tion, the city grant pro­gram mon­ey should go to oper­a­tors who are going to put their build­ings in com­mer­cial use with­in some rea­son­able, defined time period.

But to stop “demo­li­tion by neglect,” we need an envi­ron­ment in which busi­ness­es can make a prof­it, which means we need more peo­ple on the side­walks with mon­ey in their wal­lets. It’s as sim­ple, (and as hard,) as that.

It all comes down to com­mu­ni­ty sup­port.  We need peo­ple who love where they live — who want to build com­mu­ni­ty — to under­stand that it mat­ters that they quit Hamburg and Amazon and come down­town. They can make a difference.

What will it take? It’s the dread­ed chick­en and egg thing.  We need mar­ket­ing and adver­tis­ing to bring peo­ple to town. Then, when they come, we must have open busi­ness­es, walk­a­ble side­walks, acces­si­ble store­fronts, easy park­ing, safe cross­walks, respect­ful traf­fic, and work­ing sew­ers. In oth­er words, we need to address the array of infra­struc­ture issues that we all should under­stand by now. Since I’ve been in com­merce in the down­town, infra­struc­ture has been the “deal killer.” But there are plans . . .

In terms of adver­tis­ing and pro­mo­tion, we need to get beyond the Beer Cheese Festival and Pioneer Festival to some­thing more con­stant, with mes­sages direct­ed toward defined, mea­sur­able goals. I strong­ly sug­gest we set up devices to mea­sure how many peo­ple are on the side­walks, so we keep score.  You can’t man­age what you can’t measure.

We need to work as a team. Greater Clark Foundation’s Harwood pro­gram was a great start to this and is hav­ing last­ing effects. It needs to be con­tin­ued, maybe by bring­ing us all back togeth­er in a facil­i­tat­ed way — the black her­itage group, the nature group, the down­town group, the health group. We need the city and coun­ty involved as a sup­port arm somehow.

Along with Greater Clark, down­town has an incred­i­ble oppor­tu­ni­ty with the Moonshine Trail, some­thing I dreamed up in 2016, trade­marked, and with our excel­lent Mt. Folly Enterprises team, final­ly helped get fund­ed through one-chance tourism dol­lars. The trail is one of small dis­til­leries, start­ing in Lexington, pass­ing through Winchester, going on to Ravenna, Slade, and ulti­mate­ly to Pikeville. The pro­mo­tion starts next month.

The invest­ments I’ve made in my two down­town build­ings are sub­stan­tial for some­one not in the real estate busi­ness. I con­tin­ue to be hap­py I made them, I and plan to invest more to fin­ish the large apart­ment on the third floor of 1 South Main this year.

If we are wise with the mon­ey, tourists will come to our down­town and not just tour at 31 East Broadway, but eat, shop, and see a show down­town. It’s a big oppor­tu­ni­ty and a dif­fer­ent sort than Pioneer Festival or Beer Cheese. More bod­ies on the street, with a more con­stant, year-round flow.

Mt. Folly Enterprises has been award­ed a siz­able USDA grant to re-local­ize food and farm­ing. Already, we have more peo­ple work­ing down­town, and soon, we’ll have a larg­er hub of local food and farm­ing prod­ucts avail­able at The Mercantile on Main. We just need more peo­ple in the door. As with the dis­tillery, most of our cus­tomers are from out of town.

What does this have to do with demo­li­tion by neglect? More peo­ple on the streets equals more poten­tial cus­tomers, prof­itable stores and restau­rants, and no rea­son for build­ing own­ers not to fix and lease their prop­er­ties — or sell them to some­one who will fix them and put them to use. That, plus the city’s legal inter­ven­tion as defined above, is the solu­tion I see.

To city offi­cials and fel­low entre­pre­neurs, I say the following.

I’m here, and Mt. Folly Enterprises is here. The young peo­ple work­ing for enter­pris­es need to spend most of their time mak­ing a buck. I’m Chairwoman of the Board, have been in busi­ness a long time, and have a lit­tle more time to devote to com­mu­ni­ty endeavors. 

Use me.