Downtown GNV: Regress, renew, repeat

In which a photographic stroll though downtown provokes some thoughts, observations and speculations

What is it about downtown GNV anyway?

Why does it seem that for every bustling business there is a boarded up testament to someone’s failed venture?

Personally, I have come to think of downtown as a perpetual work in progress. In a state of continual urban flux if you will.

A failed enterprise here. An ambitious start-up there. An enduring monument to someone’s ambition down the street. A relic of somebody else’s collapsed dream not far away.

Some blame City ineptitude. Some say paid parking is the problem. Others say people are afraid to come downtown for fear of crime, panhandlers…all of the above.

Part of it may simply be the curse of the classic college downtown. Student customers who flock here in the wee hours to be entertained tend to be fickle.

What’s hot in the downtown music scene today may be passé by next week.

To be sure, downtown has its institutions. Harry’s, Lillian’s, Loosey’s, the Palomino, The Top, Dragonfly, Mark’s, Hear Again Records, The Hipp and such.

But you don’t have to stroll very far to spot all the failures littering the downtown landscape.

To be sure, there are ambitious plans to foster a more dynamic and sustainable downtown. But the Downtown Strategic Plan is very much in its infancy.

Does downtown depend too much on the nocturnal student trade? Probably. But historic central GNV still lacks sufficient residential and office density to make it a 24/7 live, work and play destination.

Still, you gotta admire the seemingly endless succession of gritty urban entrepreneurs who dare to roll the dice on downtown…to either succeed or fail.

As a GNV journalist who has spent decades writing about downtown it’s easy to say: “Yeah, but you should have been here in the ‘70s when the place was really dead.”

And that’s true enough. But it’s just not good enough in 2025.

Yes, GNV has a blueprint to grow a thriving and sustainable downtown. But let’s not fool ourselves. It’s gonna take a substantial investment on the part of both the City and the private sector to make it all come together. Too many strategic plans end up collecting dust on some shelf for lack of a community’s commitment.

Still, I’m an optimist. You gotta be to believe in GNV.

Listen, the slow, inevitable death of downtown GNV has been predicted by the skeptics for years.

To which doomsayers I like to respond with my all time favorite Steve McQueen quote:

“I’m still here you bastards!”