The American Downtown: A Renaissance?
By: Christopher Miller
You’ll see it out in Montana. Idaho. Wyoming. Washington state. People are flocking from the big, expensive, far-western states and moving in droves to the Rocky Mountain region.
A story from the Washington Post was recently published explaining how Bozeman, Montana is becoming “Bozeangeles” as the locals call it; where people native to California are leaving the west coast for the mountainous, rugged regions of Montana in search of permanent social distance and majestic mountains.
How does this fit into our local Clinton County area? Because I do not have access to the data of where people are moving from when they come here I cannot give concrete evidence toward a “mass migration” in our area, but more recent news reports show there is a trend of people moving into the area from outside of the Commonwealth.
Homes and property are selling left and right due to historically low interest rates. Almost weekly other local news sources are reporting the news from the Clinton County Register/Recorder’s office of real estate transactions – almost a dozen or more – every week.
A very nice husband and wife team from Alabama are setting up business and family roots on East Main Street in Lock Haven – the storefront formerly occupied by Inspirations Floral Studio.
Take a walk some afternoon down Main Street in Lock Haven and you will notice something miraculous. Amongst the properties and storefronts for rent you will also notice an abundance of *new* business blooming from the ashes of COVID-19.
Although not all of the information has been made available to local media just yet, sources are able to divulge a total count of 5 – 7 new businesses are readying to open or completing the steps to open their store shortly in the downtown Lock Haven area in the coming weeks and months.
As of the date of this printing The Record has already interviewed 2 of the local businesses readying to open: Hanna and Jordan Stover of Momoyo Otsu, a trendy boutique with a planned grand opening of Friday, November 13, and Valerie and Ken Simone, formerly of Alabama, getting ready to tempt the taste buds of northcentral Pennsylvanians, and the announcement of a pretzel-making operation to come to the former Family Dollar location in Renovo.
Social media reports the opening of another small business in the downtown area which will be reported by The Record/therecord-online very soon going by the name “A Little Bird.”
With the announcement of all of these new businesses, the best word to describe the “opening of downtown Lock Haven” could be “renaissance.”
By definition a “renaissance” is “a revival or renewed interest in something.” Could this “renewed interest” be a return to the small town America portrayed by images of Opie and Andy, Theodore Cleaver, and Green Acres?
It surely seems that our local area could be on to something of the sort.
Our more seasoned residents of Clinton County have reported that downtown Lock Haven was the place to be on a Friday and Saturday night. So busy in fact that Main Street rivaled those of Harrisburg and Williamsport; requiring a traffic policeman to direct traffic going to the myriad of stores that dotted our downtown.
For the past decade or so there has been a giant “push” to “shop small” on Small Business Saturday, the Saturday following the Thanksgiving holiday. There are major events in many small towns to kick off the beginning of the holiday shopping season in an attempt to encourage folks to “shop in their backyard.”
COVID-19 may have changed many things about how we interact with others during these trying times, but as human as we are, people still have a tendency to gravitate towards each other and crave the company of one another.
But perhaps something positive to come out of COVID-19 in our area may be the reinvention of the American downtown shopping experience.
On a personal note, I surely am excited to see what may come of our local area. I hope you are too.
Stay tuned…
