Image source: Merlina McGovern
In a recent post, I wrote about how much fun we had in downtown Asheville, North Carolina. What made this downtown space fun to explore? For me, it was the abundance of funky food places, like Curate, a Spanish tapas bar; Double D’s, a double decker bus that serves coffee and desserts; Rhubarb, a restaurant focused on community and fresh, local food; and the Gourmet Chip Company, where you can grab a quick pressed sandwich lunch and the best house-made chips. There were so many different types of restaurants for any culinary craving, and they were all within easy walking distance.
If you’re not in the mood for a sit-down restaurant, you can head to Capella on 9, a lovely rooftop bar to grab some refreshing cocktails and look at beautiful views of Asheville.
If you’re in the mood for art, you can stroll through the Asheville Gallery of Art (with 31 local artists), browse art in a historic building at Woolworth Walk, or check out the Asheville Art Museum, right in the vibrant center of the city. Or, if you’d rather check out something more literary, the Thomas Wolfe Memorial is a short walk from the city center.
All of these great experiences are within easy walking distance of downtown, and that’s not including any of the fun nightlife activities. Asheville’s population is close to 95,000, according to the 2020 census. Now, this is twice as large as my hometown’s (Arlington, MA) current population of about 46,000. Still, there are some things that I think my town could do to encourage a more vibrant downtown.
Of course, the pandemic hit our town hard, with many residents opting to stay in and not go to restaurants. Supply chain snarls and rising inflation walloped restaurant owners over and over again. One by one, exciting old and new restaurants closed, like Twyrl, with its handmade fresh pastas; Tango, an Argentinian institution; and Sabzi, a tasty Persian restaurant.
And when businesses leave our downtown, buildings and storefronts can stay vacant for such a long time. There just doesn’t seem to be much of an incentive for downtown landlords to actually have tenants in their buildings. Empty storefronts were such a big problem that the town forced landlords in 2016 to register vacancies to try to keep the landlords from keeping these buildings empty. Of course, there has to be incentives for businesses that local folks will actually visit, instead of yet another bank store front. It would be lovely to have more local restaurants and art galleries and third places (those places that are not work or home where community members can gather together), like local cafes and parks.
A large part of what made Asheville so vibrant was the close proximity of so many attractions and the ease of walking to them. Downtown Arlington is quite far from Arlington Heights, and in our hilly town, walking to and from downtown from more residential areas can be challenging, especially in the winter, when sloping, icy sidewalks have a 50-50 chance of being shoveled. The main road, Mass Ave, running through our downtown is large and not particularly pedestrian friendly. More could certainly be done to prioritize pedestrians over cars, which would go a long way to improve our downtown.
We are starting to see more signs of restaurant life in our small downtown, and I’m hoping that we’ll see even more as we get to the tail end of this god awful pandemic.
What is your downtown like? Is it vibrant and full of life? Let me know in the comments
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