Public Buildings Keep Town Centers Alive

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F E AT U R E

Public Buildings Keep Town Centers Aliveby Philip Langdon

contains two restaurants, a bar, bankingand real estate offices, and a collection ofstores, Lindner believes “the stores mustrely on attracting customers from a largerarea who will come to Hudson on nice-weather days and browse through the giftshops.” As she notes, “this further alien-ates the local shopper who might want ashoe store or something ‘real.’ ”

The harm done to downtown Hudsonis mild compared to the damage that othercommunities have suffered when one,two, or even more of their principal publicbuildings moved out. A planner in aSouthern city recalls that his downtownlost part of its liveliness when the postoffice shifted to a location outside the cen-tral business district. A while later, cityofficials decided the old city hall was toosmall, so the municipal offices relocatedto a building that had become availablebeyond downtown. Then, because somuch money was tied up in the new

city offices, localleaders passed upan opportunity tobuild a new librarydowntown, eventhough that waswhere the library’sdirector said thefacilities shouldbe. One by one,the departure ofpublic buildingsleft the center everweaker.

In Hudson, many local people realizedwhat was lost, and a campaign has beeninitiated to build a new mixed use devel-opment, including a large downtownlibrary, to try to offset the impact of theearlier decision. Regrettably, however,officials in many other communities stilldon’t recognize how the location of publicbuildings helps cause a downtown to riseor fall. When public facilities move out,the downtown may spiral downward as itsretail activity withers and local peopleinvest their energy elsewhere. Boosting

the Downtown Economy. This article examinesthe vital role post offices, municipal halls,libraries, courthouses, and other publicbuildings play in downtowns and towncenters, and what several communitieshave done to keep these uses from leaving.

SAVING THE POST OFFICE INAMHERST, MASSACHUSETTS

Amherst, a western Massachusetts col-lege town of 35,000, first became anxiousabout the possibility of losing its down-town post office in the 1980s. The PostalService announced that its building onNorth Pleasant Street was no longer largeenough and would have to be replaced bya new one in an outlying commercial area.

The old post office, a Neoclassicalbuilding constructed in 1925, “wasimportant to business people downtown,who relied on being able to walk to dotheir postal activities,” says Amherst Plan-ning Director Robert P. Mitchell. Foryears, many residents had rented boxes inthat building, just one long block from thecenter of town. “People met there to gettheir mail and exchange local gossip,”Mitchell says. “Many have rituals wherethey pick up their mail and then go getcoffee at a downtown restaurant or coffeeshop. That business would have beenlost.” A major bus stop just down thefront steps made the existing post officeconvenient for people who did not orcould not drive.

If you exit Interstate 80 andstop in Hudson, Ohio, 14 milesnorth of Akron, you might not sense that anything is amiss. People fromthroughout northeast Ohio love visitingthat picturesque old town, settled twocenturies ago as part of Connecticut’sWestern Reserve. People walk Hudson’swell-kept Main Street business district.They shop in stores built more than a cen-tury ago. They stroll across a tidy “villagegreen.” Hudson seems, on the surface, aplace where the center remains intact.

But in the past several years one aspectof Hudson has changed for the worse: in1997 the post office left its longtime loca-tion on Main Street, reducing the role ofdowntown in local people’s lives. “Thepost office was important to downtownbecause it was a huge generator of foottraffic,” says Julie Lindner, a planningconsultant who lives in Hudson. “Youcould not go there without seeing some-one you knew. It ensured that local peoplewould be downtown. It made downtownnecessary, not just a bunch of cutesyshops in a quaint setting.”

Now that the post office has moved toan automobile-oriented location justbeyond the central retail area, those wholive in Hudson have “no compelling rea-son” to go downtown, says Lindner.Though the Main Street business district

Hudson’s Post Office was relocated to this spot outside the town center.

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WHEN PUBLIC FACILITIESMOVE OUT, THE

DOWNTOWN MAY SPIRALDOWNWARD AS LOCALPEOPLE INVEST THEIRENERGY ELSEWHERE.

Boosting the DowntownEconomy

Experts in downtown development andcommercial revitalization say public build-ings are important both socially and eco-nomically. “A typical public library draws500 to 1,500 people a day,” says RobertGibbs of Gibbs Planning Group in Birming-ham, Michigan. “That’s close to the draw ofa small department store. A typical townhall draws 200 to 500 people a day.” Thosepeople help to enliven the sidewalks andput money in the cash registers of nearbystores and restaurants. In addition, Gibbssays, public buildings “add to the authentic-ity of a town. They make it less of a shop-ping center and more of a town center.”

When developments like Seaside, Flori-da, and Mashpee Commons on Cape Codwere started in the 1980s, their ownerswere unusual in providing space for smallpost offices, which they realized wouldbring people to their communities and sup-port local enterprises. Now, says Gibbs, thevalue of post offices is recognized morewidely. “A number of large [retail] develop-ers are putting civic uses into their develop-ments as an insurance policy,” he says. In an economic downturn, the presence of apost office will help the retail developmentcontinue pulling in customers.

Donovan Rypkema, principal of PlaceEconomics, a Washington, D.C.-based consulting firm, says public buildings boosta downtown’s economy. Individuals who godowntown to the post office to mail a letter,to a municipal building to pay a parkingticket, or to a courthouse to serve on a juryare all good prospects for spending moneydowntown. Government offices can be aboon. “A downtown worker will spendbetween $2,500 and $3,500 a year in thedowntown economy,” Rypkema says.

Monetary considerations aside, Rypkemasays it’s important to have the institutionalleadership of a community based in thedowntown because they can work togetherthere, benefiting the community as a whole.If the downtown looks neglected and theinstitutional leaders, including government,are not located there, any business that’sconsidering moving to the community maynotice their absence and conclude that thecommunity lacks leadership.

it and made it handi-cap accessible.

“If you need toget a birth certificateor a building permitor a passport, or youhave a problem, youcome to Town Hall,”Mitchell says. Citi-zens who serve onAmherst’s more than50 boards and com-missions continual-ly attend meetingsthere, keeping it open

from early in the morning until late at night.

When Amherst needed a new policeheadquarters, it too was built downtown,a couple of blocks from the main retailstreet. The downtown station makes iteasy to respond to drunkenness and dis-turbances when the downtown barsclose. The town has also constructed adowntown community center to servesenior citizens and provide space fornonprofit organizations and other activi-ties. Adding to the mix of downtown usesis the public library. Plenty of things hap-pen downtown, most of them good. The

Consequently, according to Mitchell,“political pressure was brought to bear,”and the Postal Service eventually relent-ed. But the Postal Service remainedunhappy about the old building’s abilityto handle large truck deliveries and sort-ing operations. “So five years later theysaid again, ‘We need a new facility,’”Mitchell recalls. This time the Postal Service, recognizing that a total pulloutwould not be accepted, offered an agree-able compromise: many functions wouldrelocate, but the downtown buildingwould remain in service.

To this day, the Post Office is a pivotalbuilding in a thriving business area.When I visited last summer, three indi-viduals – one of them blind – were sittingon benches out front, waiting for a bus.On the lawn, a young man sat reading abook. At a table shaded by a big umbrella,a vendor enticed passersby to pause andinspect African crafts and jewelry. “It’s apopular spot for vendors,” Mitchellobserved, “and a gathering spot for bothlocals and students. If you go there atseven in the morning, you’ll see regularschatting. The building itself has a civicpresence.” For a downtown to flourish,says Mitchell, “you want to have thingsto walk to. The Post Office is one of those.”

A five-minute walk away is Amherst’sTown Hall, a rugged Romanesque redbrick structure built in 1889. There was talk of selling the building in the early 1990s, when it was dilapidated,but the chamber of commerce, amongothers, didn’t like the idea of moving the municipal offices from such a centrallocation. Instead, the town renovated

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The Amherst Post Office is a popular gathering spot.

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Town Hall in downtown Amherst, Massachusetts.

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combination of busy public buildings andstores, restaurants, and other enterprisesin a walkable setting has made downtownAmherst remarkably successful.

SARATOGA SPRINGS PRESERVESA POST OFFICE, BUILDS A LIBRARY

In the 1970s the Postal Service threat-ened to vacate a Classical-style post officeat Broadway and Church Street, the “100percent corner” in Saratoga Springs, NewYork. “Because the city governmentcouldn’t or wouldn’t move fast enough,the mayor at the time, Raymond Watkin,sued as a private citizen to stop theprocess, and it worked,” recalls formerresident Mary Hotaling.

Though most mail-handling for thecity of 26,000 was transferred by thePostal Service to a new building about amile away, postal officials bowed to localpressure and agreed to continue offeringwindow service in the 1910-era building –a landmark with marble columns framingits entrance. By 1995, however, the PostalService had chopped up the interior withpartitioning and had refused to makemajor investments in what was, by its cal-culations, an inefficient old structure.

Despite its semi-dilapidated condition,the downtown post office had continuedto draw 1,500 customers a day, mainlybecause it stood amid restaurants, stores,banks, and local institutions. “We thoughtthat if the Post Office moved, it would bea disaster to downtown,” says GeoffBornemann, the city’s planning director.

Fortunately, an imaginative localdeveloper, Jeffrey W. Pfeil, negotiated anunusual response to the Postal Service’sneglect. Pfeil calculated that if he installeda rent-paying business (Coldwell Banker-Prime Properties) in half the building,

over a period ofyears the stream of rental incomewould generate the$400,000 neededfor restoration andi m p ro v e m e n t s .That includedbringing the grandlobby back to itsformer splendorand adding a dis-creetly designedh a n d i c a p p e d -access ramp. Pfeilhad to devote threelong years to push-

ing his plan through the postal bureaucra-cy, but with the backing of the lateCongressman Gerald Solomon, the build-ing once again became an impressiveanchor for downtown.

Across Broadway from the post officeis City Hall, a tall, Italian palazzo-stylestructure that continues to generate localfoot traffic 131 years after it was built.From City Hall it’s a short walk to theSaratoga Springs Public Library, built in1995. That 58,000-square-foot structure,which replaced a much smaller facility,

was constructed a block east of SaratogaSprings’ main retail street as a result of aconsensus that the library should remaindowntown.

Its executive director, Harry Dutcher,sees the library as important to “keepingdowntown healthy” and “keeping down-town relevant to the people who live here12 months a year.” “I’m sure it would havebeen a lot easier to build on a suburbanstrip,” he says. “The building could havebeen one-story.” That would have cost lessto build and operate than the three-storystructure that ultimately came into being.The costs, in Dutcher’s view, are justifiedby the fact that residents of close-in neighborhoods can walk to it and by therole the library plays in the community.

Saratoga Springs’ Post Office is a critical component of downtown.

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Saratoga Springs’ City Hall.

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Saratoga Springs’ Public Library is downtown

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Public buildings have helped spark commercialactivity in downtown Saratoga Springs.

Mixing Books,Housing, andCoffee

One of the best ways to enhance anarea’s liveliness is to mix different usesclosely together. That can be done even in buildings that serve public purposes,such as libraries. The Hollywood Libraryin the Hollywood neighborhood of Port-land, Oregon, (shown above) occupiespart of a four-story building that openedin May 2002 in a joint venture betweenthe Multnomah County Library systemand Sockeye Hollywood LLC, a privatedeveloper.

Officials wanted a mixed-use project,preferably with housing on top. That ideafit the revised zoning in a part of the citywhere residential and commercial devel-opment had previously been kept apart.“Mixed-use development allows people tolive near the services they want to enjoy,”explained John Warner of the PortlandDevelopment Commission. ThomasHacker Architects of Portland designedthe building to accommodate a 13,000-square-foot branch library, 47 mixed-income apartments, and 815 square feetof ground-floor retail space – now occu-pied by Caffé Uno.

The upper floors contain 28 market-rate apartments and 19 apartmentsreserved for people earning less than 60percent of the area’s median income. Thecounty owns the library, while Sockeyeowns the residential and retail space. Thenew library is one key element of Port-land’s plan to strengthen the center of theHollywood Neighborhood, also home tothe restored 1,500 seat, Art Deco styleHollywood Theatre and (of special inter-est to fans of author Beverly Cleary)young Ramona Quimby and her family.

to give the police the second floor andthe basement. Most of the ground floor isnow occupied by a highly successfulupscale restaurant called First & LastTavern. In fair weather, sidewalk diningenlivens the frontage of this strikingmixed-use building.

Monroe Johnson, community devel-opment specialist for the city, says the

Saratoga Springs is prospering. Devel-opers are filling parking lots on Broadwaywith new buildings, some of them two,three, or four stories high, with a mix ofretail, offices, and sometimes housing.Downtown storefronts, half-empty in the1970s, are now full. The city’s core lookshandsome and distinctive. Public build-ings helped make the revival possible.

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In Middletown, Connecticut, a new police headquarters was successfully integrated with a ground-floorrestaurant.

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police headquarters enhances confidencein downtown safety, and he observes thatthe stylish restaurant has become “proba-bly the most important commercial pres-ence on Main Street.”

Other cities have put governmentfunctions in privately owned buildings asa way of jump-starting rehabilitation indepressed blocks. A notable example isthe effort led by Art Skolnik in Seattle’sPioneer Square Historic District in theearly 1970s. Skolnik, operating from themayor’s office, enticed municipal, county,and other public entities to rent space inPioneer Square buildings. That enabledthe buildings to qualify for renovationloans. The lease commitments from gov-ernmental entities helped spur neighbor-hood revitalization. Once the privatemarket rebounded, government officeswere free to go elsewhere. Skolnik says.“Pioneer Square is now mostly restored,and it’s become an active, vital part of thecity.”


PUBLIC AND PRIVATE MIXED USES

Some communities bolster theirdowntowns by mixing government oper-ations and for-profit enterprises in a newbuilding or a new complex. Middletown,Connecticut, a city of 43,000, is one ofthose. In the mid-1990s, when the timecame to build a new police headquarters,Middletown considered a dozen sites.The choice the city settled upon was aMain Street block occupied by a vacantSears store. Local leaders hoped the newbuilding, if it was attractive, would knitthe street together and aid the recovery ofa business district that had endured leantimes.

Middletown officials realized that thenew police headquarters would do morefor Main Street’s customer appeal if thebuilding had stores or restaurants in itsground floor. The city decided to con-struct a signature building with towers ateach end – recalling a towered city hallthat had been demolished in 1960 – and

A DowntownCampus … for Government

A “public service campus” is theanswer some communities have used toserve the public efficiently and in somecases bolster the downtown. In the 1980sthe City of Midland and Midland County,Michigan, were both in dire need of newgovernment facilities, says Mark Ostgar-den, city planner for Midland (popula-tion, 41,000). The city offices weredowntown, and the county offices werescattered in several locations.

Relocating the city offices out ofdowntown was considered but rejected infavor of consolidating city and countyoffices as part of a “campus”-like redevel-opment project, located at the west end ofthe downtown Main Street business dis-trict. Also part of the government cam-pus, an abandoned Woolworth buildinghas been converted to offices for TheMackinac Center, a public policy researchorganization. According to JenniferAdamcik, Midland’s Downtown Coordi-nator, this has enabled the approximately250 city and county employees to easilyshop or eat downtown during lunch houror after work.

Another advantage of the project,Adamcik notes, has been that parking isshared by all the entities in the nine-blockredevelopment area, including govern-ments, churches, and stores.Three local foundations – TheHerbert H. and Grace A. DowFoundation, The Rollin M.Gerstacker Foundation, andThe Charles J. StrosackerFoundation – provided $3.8million of the project’s $14.3million cost.

Though a campus-likeorganization has been used inother communities as well, itwill produce only limited spin-off benefits for downtownretailers unless the governmentbuildings are located withineasy walking distance of thestores, restaurants, and otherbusinesses downtown.

Proximity exerts an enormous influ-ence. Moving a public building even ashort distance can have a large impact ona downtown’s economy. In Boise, Idaho,Ada County recently consolidated all itsoffices – including the courthouse, thecounty administration, prosecutors, andancillary staff who were scattered allaround downtown – into a single build-ing roughly five blocks south and sixblocks east of the old locations. “Lots ofthe smaller law firms are following thecourthouse in that direction,” says ElaineClegg, co-executive director of IdahoSmart Growth. “It seems crazy that sucha short-distance move could make such adifference, but the 500 or so employeesno longer eat, shop on their lunch hour,or even drive through downtown muchanymore. It has only been six months,and the businesses downtown are begin-ning to feel the effect.”

Experiences in two courthouse townsin Pennsylvania illustrate some of the nuances of siting decisions. InDoylestown, the Bucks County seat,county officials debated whether to builda new courthouse down the hill from thecommunity’s hub. The new locationwould have been only a five- or 10-minute walk away from the old court-house, according to planning consultantThomas Comitta, who conducted a com-munity impact study for the borough.

LESSONS FROMCOURTHOUSE TOWNS

In Maryland, former Gov. ParrisGlendening, as part of his Smart Growthprogram, attempted to concentrate gov-ernment offices in central locations, suchas downtowns. One example is in SnowHill, the 2,409-population seat ofWorcester County. About four years agothe county government planned to builda new office annex outside of Snow Hill,near the jail, to replace cramped facilitiesin town. “The governor went to SnowHill and said if they built it downtown,he’d put state money in the project,”recalls John Frece in the Governor’sOffice of Smart Growth.

Considering the $1.5 million incen-tive offered by the state, the countydecided to build the new space, forapproximately 120 employees, as anannex to the existing county courthousein the town’s center. The results havebeen good. A new café opened, a restau-rant expanded, and a drug store contin-ued operating despite earlier plans forclosing, Michael Dresser reported in TheBaltimore Sun. Other renovations andbusiness openings have also beenplanned in Snow Hill – attributable inlarge part to the investment in the countyoffices.

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Governmental Campus area in downtown Midland, Michigan. M

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Carson City,NevadaNevada’s state capital,

Carson City (population, 54,000), hasexperienced what may be a unique twistwhen it comes to the location of its cityhall. About ten years ago, city hall wasrelocated from downtown to a site abouta mile north of the city’s center. Unfortu-nately, nothing too unusual about that, asmany municipal offices have moved awayfrom their historic downtown locations.The twist in Carson City: city hall hasreturned to downtown (shown below).

According to Walter Sullivan, CarsonCity’s planning and community develop-ment director, the return to downtownreflected local leaders’ desire to “make astatement about the importance of down-town,” and “to strengthen the city’s effortsat downtown redevelopment.” The returnhas involved about one hundred employ-ees, including the mayor and city manag-er’s offices, as well as the city’s board ofsupervisors. The downtown relocationwas eased when a rehabbed former bankbuilding became available.

Sullivan notes that that the move backdowntown has added to downtown’svitality. In addition, local officials havebenefited from now being within walkingdistance of the State Capitol building.

Also reinforcing Carson City’s down-town revival: the opening of a new down-town post office in 2001. In addition,downtown has seen the construction of anew main fire station and the remodelingand expansion of the public library.

the employment base will remain, withineasy walking distance.

ARTS CENTERS IN THE CENTER

While the focus of this article hasbeen on buildings such as post officesand town halls, in many communities anarts center can provide the linchpin forstrengthening downtown.

In Lawrence, Kansas, debate centeredon a community Arts Center in an oldCarnegie library building owned by thecity, which the arts group had outgrown.Meanwhile, a local industry made anattractive offer to build a new center on adonated site outside the downtown.

Linda Finger, city/county planningdirector, said the mayor and the govern-ing body established an ad hoc commit-tee to review options for renovating adowntown building or finding anotherdowntown location. Through the effortsof several local business owners anddevelopers a better alternative wasdevised. A new arts center, as well ascommercial buildings, apartments, and aretail center were developed within thedowntown district. The Arts Center con-tinues contributing the vitality of the artscommunity to the central city and hasbeen an anchor to redevelopment, Fingersays.

Near the Arts Center a new MunicipalCourt building has also gone up. “Noneof this happened quickly,” Finger notes,“but over a three- to four-year time span,with a lot of public involvement and

But that distance would have been longenough to harm the downtown of the8,227-population borough. “If the court-house moves, the retail shops, stores andrestaurants will suffer,” said Comitta. ““‘Mom and pop’ businesses would be thefirst to go.” His warning seems to haveregistered. Bucks County now appearslikely to expand the existing courthouserather than erect a new building awayfrom the community’s center.

In West Chester, the 18,000-popula-tion seat of Chester County, the initialthinking among the county judges wassomewhat different. The judges wereinclined to construct a nine-story courtbuilding right in the borough’s center,close to the existing one. The problemwas that the new facility would haverequired demolition of about a dozensmall buildings. Helpful though publicbuildings can be for a community’s vitali-ty, it can be a mistake to put them wherethey displace tax-paying buildings –especially tax-paying buildings that con-tain local businesses.

The stores and other enterprises inWest Chester’s town center were impor-tant to the community’s character, saysComitta, who lives in West Chester andoccasionally consults for its borough gov-ernment. Eventually the Chester Countycommissioners and judges decided tobuild the new court facilities a block anda half away – an outcome that Comittaregards as nearly ideal. Existing business-es and buildings will continue to be, and

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The new Lawrence, Kansas, Arts Center has helped boost the small city’s downtown.

City Hall is back downtown in Carson City,Nevada. The State Capitol can be seen in thebackground

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working together creatively to meet bothpublic and private-sector needs.”

The distance between local govern-ment and the arts is literally the length ofa flight of stairs in the small town ofAntrim, New Hampshire. As formerAntrim planning commissioner DavidEssex recounts, “two years ago propo-nents of a $900,000 Town Hall renovationwon a surprising Town Meeting vote fromnotoriously frugal residents in part bydemonstrating the Town Hall’s impor-tance as a venue for civic organizations,notably a very active theater troupe thatwould have been without a performancespace if the upstairs auditorium had notbeen renovated and brought up to code.”According to Essex, the plan passed inlarge part because of the “homework”done by a committee that carefullyworked through the details of the renova-tion plan before the Town Meeting vote.

DESIGN MAKES A DIFFERENCE

Public buildings that generate com-munity activity and social life are morecritical to a downtown than are more rou-tine government office buildings. Postoffices, for example, serve and attractindividuals from throughout the commu-nity, giving them opportunities to social-ize and filter through a town or citycenter. The same is true for town halls,libraries, and arts centers.

Government offices that have lessdaily involvement with the public can be

useful for giving down-town a boost, but theyhave to be skillfullyintegrated into theirsurroundings. Since thebombing of the Okla-homa City FederalBuilding, this hasbecome harder toaccomplish, especiallyfor courthouses andfederal facilities. InNew Haven, Connecti-cut, Mayor John DeSte-fano Jr. worked to get anew FBI building erect-ed in the downtown,but it has turned out to be not much of anasset. The building stands far back fromthe street behind a black metal fence andan array of barriers. The barriers and theretreat from the street make for anunfriendly environment. Pedestrian life,which is critical to downtown vitality,cannot tolerate much of this.

But responding to security concerns isnot necessarily incompatible with com-munity-sensitive design. Even large feder-al office buildings and courthouses can beintegrated with their surroundings in anattractive manner, and remain vital com-ponents of downtown districts.

According to Joe Moravec, Commis-sioner of the General Services Admini-stration’s Public Buildings Service(responsible for the siting and design offederal buildings), GSA remains firmlycommitted to “using the federal presence

as a force to help strengthen downtowns.”While federal buildings need to satisfy“the paramount concern of worker andvisitor safety,” they do not have to becomefortresses. Moravec also points to the useof berms and other landscaping tech-niques to provide sufficient “stand off dis-tances” for vehicles, while offering anaesthetically pleasing environment. AsMoravec notes, it is essential to have high-quality architecture and design that willresult in buildings that can “be a source ofpride for generations.”

SUMMING UP:

The presence of public buildings isone of the keys to a strong and vibrantdowntown or town center. Many commu-nities have seen economic and social ben-efits when the post office, the municipalbuilding, the public library, and otherimportant public buildings stay or expanddowntown. Conversely, when they leave,the fabric knitting downtown togethercan start to unravel.◆

Philip Langdon is awriter and associate editorof New Urban News, anational newsletter ondesign and development. He is also the author of A Better Place to Live:Reshaping the AmericanSuburb (University ofMassachusetts Press, 1994. Langdon’s previousarticle for the PCJ, “New Development, TraditionalPatterns,” appeared in PCJ #36, Fall 1999. He lives in New Haven, CT, and can be reached at [email protected].

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The landscaping in front of the federal courthouse in downtown Minneapolis integrates security and aesthetics.

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Online Comments:“Besides creating activity

downtown, public buildings have anotherquite important role: they connect us to ourcommunity’s past and carry our identity intothe future. While popular culture focuses onindividuality, rebellion, and rootlessness, civicspaces are one of the rare manifestations wehave left of community and depth of commonvalues and culture through time. They providethat sense of comfort, continuity, and place soimportant to the human psyche.”

– Ilene Watson, Planner, Kelowna, BritishColumbia

“Holly Springs, Mississippi, is a town ofaround 9,5000, southeast of Memphis. In themid-1980s, the Postal Service announced thatthe downtown post office, on the town square,would be moved to a location on the westerncity limits. The Chamber of Commerce andthe Downtown Merchants Association, bol-stered by three downtown banks, launched acampaign to keep the post office downtown.After much negotiation, the Postal Serviceagreed to leave the downtown location openfor specific services, while moving other ser-vices to the new location. This arrangementhas worked for everyone.”

– Ivy Owen, Community Development Coordinatorfor the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians (andformer C.D. Director, Holly Springs, Mississippi)

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Public Buildings Keep Town Centers Alive