While Fort Wayne struggles to get its downtown going, Indianapolis has done so well that downtown might be entering the "victim of its own success" stage. Nordstrom, the only anchor tenant originally committed to taking a spot in the new Circle Centre Mall, is leaving downtown, which is causing some to worry about the future of the other anchor tenant, Carson Pirie Scott, and the whole future of the mall. But the upscale company's departure doesn't mean downtown has stopped thriving. On the contrary:
Before 1995, no one wanted to go Downtown to shop, eat or be entertained.
Today, tens of thousands of young professionals and empty nesters actually live Downtown. I'm one of them.
In the past decade, more than 3,200 residential units have been built in the city's core, according to Indianapolis Downtown Inc.
This means that Circle Centre, in only a few years, has gone from a mall designed for tourists to one that must appeal to tourists and residents.
Nordstrom doesn't fit in that equation anymore. Not for tourists and not for residents.
Consider that Indianapolis attracts about 18 million visitors a year. About 12 million of those visitors come here for conventions, meaning they don't spend as much money shopping and entertaining themselves as the rest who arrive on vacation. The average tourist of any stripe spends about $300 a day on everything.
That means Nordstrom is out of most visitors' price range.
The formula for making an area come back involves just the right mix of things to do and people to do them. Fort Wayne doesn't really have enough of either right now, and knowing which one to goose along can be tricky. Do we concentrate more on activities so as to lure people to live there, or do we try to get more people as an inducement for businesses to follow? We haven't had much luck with the people, so so far we've been concentrating on the things-to-do aspect.
Just one reason government should be careful about how hard it pushes for downtown revival, and what percentage of public and private investment it encourages. For every obvious success story like the one in Indianapolis, I'd bet there are 10 efforts like Fort Wayne's, which always show promise but never seem to get the timing quite right.
