Winchester’s downtown is thriving once again

Adam Kidd once described Winchester as “the epit­o­me of small-town America.”

He was refer­ring to many aspects of life here, but the top-of-the-mind fea­ture was our down­town. Winchester’s down­town core is one of the best exam­ples in the state of an intact busi­ness dis­trict con­sist­ing of authen­tic build­ings from the late 19^th and ear­ly 20^th centuries.

It is tru­ly the beat­ing heart of Clark County.

But let’s be hon­est: begin­ning in the 1980s and for three or so decades fol­low­ing, Winchester’s once-thriv­ing down­town — not unlike those of most sim­i­lar-size towns — had been in steep decline. Once burst­ing with depart­ment stores and vir­tu­al­ly every oth­er kind of com­mer­cial enter­prise, down­town shop­pers saw those pull up stakes and leave for the bypass or leave town entirely.

Once beau­ti­ful build­ings fell into decline. Several fell to the wreck­ing ball, hav­ing been vic­tims of neglect and vacancy.

That began to change about a decade ago, as slow­ly, neglect­ed build­ings were restored and occu­pied by new busi­ness­es. The process seems to be accel­er­at­ing since the com­ple­tion of the high-side ren­o­va­tion that has sparked inter­est in our Main Street area. The city is now pur­su­ing grants to extend the new side­walks, land­scap­ing, and oth­er ameni­ties north to Depot Street and South to Boone Ave.

Meanwhile, the first phase of the project has final­ly wound down, with only the instal­la­tion of dec­o­ra­tive cov­ers over the drain pipes in the high side wall remain­ing to be com­plet­ed. Mayor Reed told me last week that the cov­ers will be in place soon and that the burnt-out bulbs in the dec­o­ra­tive globe street­lights will be replaced.

In addi­tion to all that, the town is mak­ing plans to cel­e­brate America’s 250^th birth­day. Mayor Reed told us that City Hall will be encour­ag­ing busi­ness­es to dec­o­rate their build­ings and dis­play American flags. And the city plans to tem­porar­i­ly turn “The Great White Way” into the Red, White, and Blue Way by replac­ing some of the exist­ing white light bulbs with red and blue ones. It should look amaz­ing at night!

Today, one can vis­it sev­er­al unique bou­tiques and shops down­town, savor a deli­cious meal at one of at least a half-dozen great eater­ies, enjoy a smooth­ie or an ice cream cone, vis­it a muse­um, work out, take in live per­form­ing arts, vis­it a farm­ers mar­ket, have a drink, get a tat­too, buy a book, or just hang out with friends. We have shops that fea­ture local arti­sans, pot­tery, curiosi­ties, and oth­er one-of-a-kind items not found any­where else. 

You can’t do all of that at any big-box store. 

Most peo­ple of a cer­tain age reflect back on the mid­dle of the 20^th cen­tu­ry — the 1940s through the 1970s — as the gold­en age of our down­town. Could we be on the cusp of a sec­ond gold­en age? The next few years will tell the tale. 

Last week, a friend asked me to take a pho­to of Main Street and the Courthouse from the roof of our offices, now that the land­scap­ing plants are green­ing up and bloom­ing. I thought I’d get a few at street lev­el as well. You can enjoy these in the pho­to gallery below.