The tourist season is over and many downtown Juneau shops are closed, but that’s not keeping other businesses from working to make it a more vibrant place.
This week, the Downtown Business Association met with Kathy La Plante. She’s a hired consultant with Main Street America, a national program that’s helped cities around the country enhance their downtowns for nearly 30 years.
According to the Juneau Empire, the DBA spent about $6,500 for the consulting job, and will have to pay an annual fee of $250 to stay in the program.
La Plante said it was great to see the community work together on a plan. She said she knew Juneau was a tourist town and was surprised to see events still going past the tourist season.
“I thought, ‘Oh, they’re very cruise ship oriented, I’m going to go there and see half the stores closed up because it’s a summertime economy,’” she said. So I’m really impressed that it does still remain a very vibrant place in the downtown.”
On Halloween, for example, dozens of businesses passed out candy to trick-or-treaters.
La Plante’s met with more than 100 business owners and community members. At a meeting Tuesday evening, attendees voted on their priorities.
“The number one was increasing the housing stock, and affordable housing, housing that could happen,” La Plante said. “We know that there are a lot of upper stories in the downtown area that are vacant and unused and we have to look at what’s preventing those from being developed or what new housing construction can happen here (and) what business amenities go with that.”
Other priorities included improving parking and marketing Juneau as a destination spot for Alaskans. La Plante acknowledges that traveling to the capital city is expensive.
She said she’ll create a summary report based on her visit and share it at a Downtown Business Association meeting in early January.
Colleen Goldrich, owner of Annie Kaill’s and a Downtown Business Association board member, said downtown Juneau’s been changing for the better.
“There’s been a lot of growth in downtown with new stores opening, new restaurants opening and shops and services, and things like that,” she said.
City Manager Rorie Watt attended a couple of the meetings this week, and said he believes in the program.
“You know, I appreciated is that Kathy and main street’s program sort of provides structure for bringing people together,” Watt said.
He said addressing some of the social ills that cause problems like homelessness, or housing and parking availability, are complex.
But he stresses that efforts continue to be made on the city level.
