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What downtown needs is for
What downtown needs is for Blacksburg to allow more office space on the ground floor of buildings in the downtown core, rather than having to go through obtaining a SUP from town council. The kind of small, niche retail that set Blackbsurg apart for years is shirveling up and leaving because there is not the captive foot traffic in downtown now. With offices gone, and more eatery options on the VT campus, the people aren't there like before. Having professional offices, like small engineering firms, lawyers, accountants, and other types of businesses being allowed to freely locate to the ground floor vacant spaces would help to revitalize downtown by both cleaning up and occupying vacant properties and bringing more people to the downtown core on a daily basis to visit shops and restaurants. Most healthy downtowns I see have a good mix of office, retail, and restuarant spaces...but only in Blacksburg do I see virtually no offices unless they are the 2nd floor or above. I think that needs to change to help spur new growth and keep downtown viable in competition with all of the other commercial and retail options that are coming in the next few months and years.
Adopt Empty Storefront Ordinances
I hope Citizen's First pushes for the town of Blacksburg to push for Empty Storefront Ordiances that penalize building owners for leaving buildings "dark" for extended periods and provides incentives for new busineses. There are dozens of good examples of ordinances like this throughout the country.
These types of ordinances are typically embraced by citizens as well as business owners since their stimulate business and keep towns healthy and vibrant. It only penalizes building owners who are happy to just take tax write-offs.
Creative business owners may open temporary galleries, in lieu of finding long-term business tenants.
Also, at this point in our development, it would give incentives for out-of-town companies with large buildings (like Kroger, Food Lion, etc.) to ensure that they fill their spaces if they should ever leave.