Let's get student shoppers downtown

By CAROL SHARICK

Published on August 10, 2007

In the past month, we've read in the Bulletin about Hadley reaping the benefits of UMass students' spending habits, while preventing them from living there. We've read about empty storefronts and office suites in town, possibly caused by high rents. We've read about uncertain town-gown financial relations because of the unfortunate exit of UMass Chancellor John Lombardi. We've come to understand that we all like swimming and golf, and would really like to keep those things in our town, because, yes, indeed, they are nice and convenient things to have.

These things all seem to have a common thread: They're all about money, or lack of it, at some level.

Money is something that each year Amherst seems to have less of, and each year we seem to need more of. And we don't seem to be making any progress at turning that around. That's not a sustainable recipe for a town, and as residents we all need to start imagining the possibilities for success, rather than sitting around with the bucket of popcorn, watching the town fall further into financial disarray.

Imagine for a moment a town in which students could live, buy groceries, buy trendy and affordable clothing, dine out, see a movie and not have to go elsewhere to get what they need. You may think that town is Amherst but, unfortunately, that's not the case. Imagine Amherst, with its stores doing a booming business, its theater thriving, its small businesses in great shape and its landlords not sitting on empty spaces for months on end.

Again, that could be Amherst, but it's not. Imagine that same town flush with money, not worrying about how to keep both of the pools and a golf course open, or about which section of the town or schools' budget we'll have to rob to pay for those things. Imagine having an economic development officer in town, to help make these things happen.

One of the keys to our economic success seems to be attracting students to town to do their shopping, rather than sending them to Hadley. Right now, we have two pretty pricey boutique women's clothing stores in town, one for younger people, and one with more mature styles. These are both very nice shops, but a student (undergrad or grad) on a budget could hardly afford to shop at either. Even an adult of middle income could probably not afford to shop there. And there is no clothing store in town for men.

Where should our college students buy their clothes? Do we want them to go to Hadley? That makes Hadley richer, and makes our environment dirtier, since we're sending more cars to Hadley rather than drawing walking students to town.

Open your imaginations for a moment to this possibility: What if a national franchise clothing store, very popular with male and female students (and even some middle aged folks), very supportive of democratic causes, and even having the words "peace" and "love" in their commercials this past year, were to move into a long-vacated restaurant space near the fire station?

The mall in Hadley doesn't have this store, but I'd bet money that if Amherst had it, the students would come.

What if another similar store, perhaps catering more to the outdoorsy catalog shopper, moved into a soon-to-be-vacated art gallery? And then what if a store (either franchise or otherwise) specializing in storage solutions for apartment dwellers came to town? What if a small grocery store moved into the Boltwood Walk parking garage area?

These are all possibilities, and with name-brand stores and food stores come students, and with students comes money, and more business for the pre-existing stores in town, more business for the restaurants in town, more business for the movie theater. Perhaps it's time for some of those landlords to consider converting their office suites into retail space, a la Thornes in Northampton.

Now imagine a new restaurant. Not a bad idea, since you pretty much always have to wait wherever you go. How about an affordable Italian place with red-and-white-checkered tablecloths and red naugahyde seats, that serves pizza, spaghetti, and beer and wine, where you can sit down and have a casual, relaxed and affordable meal? Nothing fancy, nothing expensive, just good old Italian food.

I, for one, would give my business to all of those places if they were in Amherst.

Right now, there are a lot of things I can't buy in Amherst that I'd like to. I bet I'm not alone. All of these things could be done, with a little imagination, a little economic development initiative, and some good entrepreneurial spirit.

And with a little of all of those things, we could go far toward keeping our students (and their money) in Amherst, lowering their, and our own, carbon footprints, and encouraging the university and colleges to invest more in the town. And we could go far toward affording to keep the pools open, and the golf course up and running for, as a previous writer pointed out, that "bunch of guys coming home from a 9-5 job to get in a few holes before going home to dinner." Imagine that!

Carol Sharick lives on Flat Hills Road and works at Amherst College.