Winchester’s downtown is unique; let’s help it thrive

Shortly after we moved to Winchester in 2015, I read in The Winchester Sun about devel­op­ments down­town that would ulti­mate­ly result in a brand new CVS Pharmacy and a Kentucky Bank branch on Maple Street.

The for­mer bank location—at a promi­nent gate­way to the down­town busi­ness district—was to be demol­ished and replaced by the new drug store, while the new bank branch would be built on anoth­er cor­ner of Maple a cou­ple of blocks north.

The final result turned out to be a bit of a dis­ap­point­ment, in my view.

I had hoped for a more sub­stan­tial bank build­ing on this impor­tant urban corridor—something more akin to the Central Bank branch up the street or the People’s Bank on North Main, both of which bet­ter reflect the urban nature of the down­town busi­ness dis­trict than the Kentucky Bank branch, which is vir­tu­al­ly iden­ti­cal to the sub­ur­ban-style build­ing built on Bypass Road a cou­ple of years prior.

Similarly, I was hop­ing the new drug store would at least pay homage to the dis­tinc­tive build­ing it replaced, with its cor­ner plaza that wel­comed vis­i­tors down­town. Instead, we got a suburban-style store sur­round­ed by a sprawl­ing park­ing lot. Not very invit­ing to pedes­tri­ans walk­ing about downtown.

Despite these mis­giv­ings, I decid­ed to look at the pos­i­tive side of these devel­op­ments. Both of these new build­ings rep­re­sent a sub­stan­tial invest­ment in our down­town busi­ness dis­trict by pri­vate busi­ness­es, an indi­ca­tion their lead­ers believe there is a future in Winchester’s down­town district.

At a time when most small-town cores are strug­gling, Winchester’s seems to be pick­ing up steam. One can vis­it many near­by towns and wit­ness down­towns where no new build­ing has gone up for decades.

Take a look up and down Main Street. I am encour­aged by the many ded­i­cat­ed offi­cials, busi­ness peo­ple, and vol­un­teers who are work­ing to make our down­town more vibrant and inter­est­ing. It’s true new busi­ness­es tend to come and go, but I sense we are near­ing a tip­ping point.

I’m espe­cial­ly excit­ed about see­ing the high-side project to be com­plet­ed over the next year or so. The com­plete­ly ren­o­vat­ed build­ing and green space being devel­oped by DAM Holdings at South Main and Lexington Avenue will be an attrac­tive gate­way on that end of town. Not to men­tion the oth­er side of the street, where Whiskey & Wiles’ ren­o­vat­ed space, along with Amy’s Asian Kitchen and Mason on Main, make up a great trio of inter­est­ing and well-main­tained businesses. 

I believe the next five years or so will be a boom era for Winchester’s Main Street and envi­rons. It takes time to rebuild a busi­ness dis­trict that, like most down­towns, was wiped out by the flight to the sub­urbs in the late 20^th Century.

I don’t know about you, but I’m bored with big box stores and chain restau­rants. Face it, you could be in any town or city in America along “the strip” and not know where you are. But we have a shin­ing jew­el in our most­ly intact Victorian-era Main Street. That’s an authen­tic back­drop you can’t recre­ate, and is the envy of many small towns.

Just before Christmas, my wife and I did some shop­ping down­town and enjoyed the pleas­ant expe­ri­ence of inter­act­ing with friend­ly shop own­ers and greet­ing friends and neigh­bors. We plan to spend more time down­town as warmer weath­er takes over and we have time to explore all the oth­er great shops and eater­ies in town. I hope you see you there.

One doesn’t have to own a busi­ness or be a town offi­cial to help rebuild our down­town; we can all con­tribute to its suc­cess. You don’t have to do any­thing more than come down and vis­it. Check out all that down­town has to offer and spend a few dol­lars where it helps our com­mu­ni­ty the most.