From the time big retailers began fleeing Fresno’s downtown more than 40 years ago, community leaders have chased just about every easy fix that’s been dangled in front of them to make downtown vibrant again.
Instead of methodically building downtown as a destination for residents, they’ve fallen in love with out-of-town consultants, and the solutions they push to desperate cities.So we’ve tried to lure big-box retailers and offered generous development rights to out-of-town companies with big promises. We’ve paid for plans that have repeated the same old tired solutions, and then they stack up at City Hall.Even if a decent plan came along, our attention span would kill it as we jumped to the latest “big idea” being promoted by the experts.Then we seem stunned that downtown remains in the same old mess, despite millions of dollars in public investments. You’d think someone along the way would say there’s a better way to revitalize downtown than clinging to the strategies that have failed us.Not surprisingly, the Bass Pro Shops/Forest City approach never materialized for Fresno, and the downtown stadium never brought the success to adjacent businesses that many had hoped. But don’t worry. We haven’t run out of easy answers — the latest one being to restore traffic to the Fulton Mall.There is some irony in that the Fulton Mall, constructed in 1964, was the first easy answer to a dying downtown. Now it’s a victim of that strategy.The Fulton Mall has long been a target of those in the magic bullet camp. Just put traffic back on the mall, and all will be well. They’ve even found experts to say that Fulton Mall stores would prosper if they had the visibility of traffic going by their shops.It’s one of those arguments that get a lot of people nodding their heads in agreement. In fact, those heads nod so fast they could be used to jackhammer out the mall pavement to make way for traffic lanes.But this is what occurs to me every time I hear the experts say the lack of traffic hurts mall businesses: What about all the dying businesses on nearby streets that have traffic running in front of them? They don’t seem to be benefitting by the visibility factor.What is ignored in such debates is that downtown’s problems were not created by the Fulton Mall, and ripping out the pedestrian mall won’t solve them. But it appears that’s the direction we are headed.The influential board of directors of PBID Partners of Downtown is supporting two recommendations for the Fulton Mall. Both include putting traffic lanes on the mall. Mayor Ashley Swearengin hasn’t revealed her position publicly, but City Hall insiders say she’s leaning toward the car solution. To the mayor’s credit, she has a bigger plan to turn around downtown than just returning traffic to the mall. We should let that plan have a chance to develop before taking out the pedestrian mall. That would be smart, but smart is being trumped by desperation.The mall’s supporters once could rely on public support to reject the traffic solution, but it appears that’s no longer the case. If the community now wants traffic on the Fulton Mall, then let’s just do it.But don’t be surprised if Fulton becomes just one more neglected downtown street, and we go searching again for a simple solution.