A rock-climbing gym and a refurbished historic movie theater are coming to Vancouver’s Main Street, projects that are generating enthusiasm from downtown boosters.
The sector also has recently gained two new grocery options, said Lee Rafferty, executive director of Vancouver’s Downtown Association.
Despite the new arrivals, downtown toy store owner Mary Sisson said her shop hasn’t seen enough traffic to justify staying open just three blocks from Main Street. The Kazoodles store on West Eighth Street is slated to close in mid-February.
The disparity illustrates a downtown core that’s in flux, said Bob Bernhardt, a broker and co-owner of downtown commercial real estate firm Coldwell Banker Commercial Jenkins Bernhardt Associates. Bernhardt said retailers and restaurants are still vulnerable to an economic downturn that has rocked the foundation of many Clark County businesses. However, he has seen more interest from businesses looking to lease or buy downtown buildings.
“People are starting to put their toe in the water,” Bernhardt said, after a recent meeting held by the downtown group.
The Vancouver Food Cooperative, an online market, and Neighbor’s Market, an Uptown Village storefront stocked with local foods, could attract more residents to the city’s central core, Rafferty said.
“They (residents) won’t move in without a place to buy groceries,” she said.
On the other side of the age-old “chicken-and-egg” dilemma, Rafferty said retailers and larger grocery chains aren’t likely to commit to downtown without enough residents there to keep them in business.
The stalemate and still-sluggish consumer spending continues to stall downtown redevelopment, said Elie Kassab, a downtown developer. He expects to move forward this year with a 101-unit apartment building to replace the former Vancouver police station at 300 E. 13th St., said Kassab, owner of Prestige Development in Vancouver.
“That is going to be the key to downtown revitalization, is to have people live there and work there,” he said.
In turn, Kiggins Theatre owner Bill Leigh hopes for new residents to fill the seats during showings at the landmark movie house he is restoring. The venue at 1011 Main St. will open this summer after being shuttered in May due to poor attendance.
Since then, an army of volunteers has spent several weekends removing construction debris and installing new seats that are replicas of the theater’s original seating. It first opened in 1936. The work crew has uncovered the theater’s upstairs wooden-plank flooring, its art deco paint and its stained-glass windows.
Leigh’s supporters plan to set up a nonprofit for donations to continue work on the theater.
“It is the phoenix rising from the ashes,” said Leigh, who has invested about $200,000 in the project so far.
When it opens, the venue’s operators will need to draw patrons from out of the area, said Kassab, who built and opened the downtown Vancouver City Center 12 Cinema in 1998. Kassab still operates cinemas in Sandy, Ore., and Independence, Ore. He sold the downtown venue in 2006.
“When we first opened the City Center 12, we would audit the number of cars parked there. We looked at the license plates and 52 to 55 percent were from Oregon,” Kassab said.
Traffic down
Sisson, owner of Kazoodles, said 2010 holiday sales at the toy store declined by 30 percent compared with the 2009 season. The store opened in 2006 in ground-floor retail space in the Esther Short Commons building. Nearby building tenants included a Quiznos sandwich shop, a gift store and businesses that were part of the indoor Vancouver Farmer’s Market, Sisson said. The Quiznos space is now vacant and the gift store has moved. The indoor farmer’s market has been replaced by a health club and a bank branch.
“This past summer, our weekend business was down 16 percent,” Sisson said. Kazoodles will keep its east Vancouver store open at 13503 S.E. Mill Plain Blvd.
Meanwhile, Kassab said parking has declined by up to 61 percent at his former downtown theater business.
“We used to attract 400,000 visitors a year and that number has dwindled down to 155,000,” Kassab said.
That could change with plans for a rock-climbing gym to become the Kiggins Theatre’s new neighbor.
Proposed for the southwest corner of West 12th and Main streets, $1.5 million indoor rock-climbing venue The Source Climbing Gym will draw rock-climbing enthusiasts from all over the Portland area, according to its developers from Portland-based Climbing Management Group.
“It’s a point-of-destination business. You don’t have a rock-climbing venue on every corner, like a supermarket,” said Ryan Hurley, of Hurley Development, which is marketing and developing the project. “The clientele is definitely willing to travel.”
Hurley expects construction to start in May on the three-story building, which he anticipates will open this fall.
He said the majority of the gym’s members will be young professionals, followed by those who sign up for creative clinics and programs designed for colleges and youth organizations.
“We hope to bring in up to 30,000 people a year,” Hurley said.
That could help promote the downtown sector and the rest of the city, Rafferty said.
“These efforts aren’t just about growing downtown. This is really about growing the entire city,” she said.
