Study Says Downtown Needs More Arts, Entertainment, Retail and Restaurants

About a 100 people crowded into the Elks Lodge on Bissell Street Thursday night to hear the results of a study that could very well decide the future of downtown Manchester. 

The lengthy, three-part report - commissioned by the Downtown Manchester Special Services District (DMSSD) and funded through a donation by First Niagara Bank - found that most people had a generally favorable opinion of downtown Manchester and that parking was not a significant hurdle in attracting potential customers to the area, but that the downtown could stand a boost from more independent businesses, restaurants and arts and entertainment venues. 

"There was nothing wrong in Manchester. There just wasn't enough to do," said Michael Vigeant, president of the Meriden-based Center for Research, who conducted the business study portion of the survey. "There's no major barriers from stopping folks from coming down here. They would just like a little bit more to do." 

Vigeant's study, which surveyed 250 residents of Manchester and 150 residents of surrounding communities and has a margin of error o 5 percent, found that 92 percent of those surveyed said they were very or somewhat familiar with the downtown area, while 75 percent said they had a "very favorable" or "somewhat favorable" opinion of the area, compared to 14.5 percent who said they had a "somewhat unfavorable" opinion of the downtown and 6.3 percent who said they had a "not at all favorable" opinion of the area. 

Of those surveyed, 64.6 percent said that a greater variety of retail shops would lead them to frequent the downtown area more often, 56.5 percent wanted more plays and live performances in the area, 54.3 percent more live music, and 52.8 percent wanted more restaurants/bars and movies in the downtown area. 

But Lawrence Kenney, a senior vice president for AMS Consulting LLC, a real estate and marketing firm that worked on the study, cautioned that downtown Manchester would not be a viable market for larger or more recognizable retail chains, and that thriving independent and niche businesses in the area, such as a consignment shop, would be a more practical fit. 

"You're not going to find the Abercrombie and Fitch's, the Gaps or the J. Crews considering the downtown," Kenney said. "It's just not going to happen." 

Kenney said the downtown area had lost a "sense of identity" as more and more businesses moved out of the downtown through the years and toward the mall area, and that successful independent retailers, restaurants and cultural and entertainment attractions could help return some of that identity to the area. 

Regina Winters, a principal at Zared, an architectural and planning firm in New Haven who also worked on the study, noted that parking was not a significant issue in the downtown area, as there were plenty of off-street lots and side street parking available. Winters said that aesthetically downtown Manchester was already very attractive to potential new business owners or visitors. 

"Downtown Manchester, the central business district, is an urban designers dream," Winters said. "You should be very, very proud of the accomplishments that you've achieved as far as the physical environment in downtown Manchester." 

The study also suggested that existing businesses in the downtown area take a more proactive role in trying to recruit new independent businesses to the area, and also suggested increased special events in the downtown area as a way to expose downtown Manchester to more non-Manchester residents. 

Tana Parseliti, Downtown Manager for the Downtown Manchester Special Services District, said the study was helpful in identifying new avenues of growth for the downtown, and that members of the DMSSD Board of Commissioners would be sitting down in the next several weeks to discuss ways to implement many of the suggestions outlined in the study. 

"We were looking for a thorough, honest and fair report, and I think that's what we got," Parseliti said. 

The full results of the study can be viewed here. 

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