When I moved to Winston-Salem in 2002 to start a new job, downtown Winston was pretty depressing. Very little to do, not too many places to eat and no real incentive to hang around after work. In the past four years though, through steady persistent work on behalf of the city, developers, and businesses and more than a bit of hope and good fortune, downtown Winston is recovering and poised to return to something of its former glory.

The original centerpiece of downtown development was the Restaurant Row program which has succeeded quite well despite some notably losses like the Indian restaurant Kababs. The Arts District is coming along nicely with art gallery and craft stores with a few restaurants tossed into the mix.

Yet restaurants and art galleries is not enough to create a vibrant self-sustaining downtown that can take care of itself without the need for civic funding. People need more of a reason to come downtown other than seeing a painting or grab a bite at Mellow Mushroom. For the people living downtown, there has to be enough things downtown so that they do not have to travel to Stratford Rd or Hanes Mall.

So what are the sort of things that downtown Winston-Salem needs to be more well-rounded and be an alternative place to go for shopping and entertainment?

Let me throw a few things out there:

• Upscale men’s salon - I used to go to American Male salon when it was in the tower at One West Fourth. It was great getting a hair cut during working hours and get a relaxing shoulder massage as necessary. But the location killed it as few people knew that it actually existed. So now it is gone and there is no other place downtown to get a great hair cut. So now I go to Great Clips at a strip mall. A street level barber shop/hair salon along Fourth or Trade will do well I figure. There is a new Spa opening up at the Embassy Suites for the ladies but gentlemen do not have an alternative.
• Performing Arts theatre - this was considered to be one of the main structures for Unity Place when the initial plans for that re-development came about. With that failure, troupes like the Little Theatre housed in smallish community type theatres scattered around Winston have remained far from downtown where I think they will thrive through better attendance and visibility. A small theatre with the ability to hold small and mid-size productions for upwards of three hundred people in attendance is required. The Steven’s Centre as a venue is too large for many of the community style productions these troupes perform. As it is, the Steven’s Centre in the prime months od September through April usually has a full calendar. As for location of the new theatre, it is important to leverage all of the new restaurant development along Fourth and in the Arts District because people going to plays will make a night out of it with a dinner and a show and they probably would like to walk from the restaurant directly to the theatre without returning to their car. I would favor the Arts District area over Fourth primarily because there is more land available there for redevelopment particularly along Liberty St and I think the Arts District is going to see an surge in restaurant dining if a theatre with regular productions is located there. However, the Sawtooth Center is getting a make-over which would include a new theatre that would meet this need provided that the funding holds. With corporate donors originally signed on as sponsors of the new theatre, the economic collapse may affect these plans. For now, it is a wait and see approach.
• Film theatre - similarly, a film theatre geared for downtown audiences may also work well. There is a need in this city to see films that would not normally get a wide release but would attract a nice audience here in Winston-Salem. The film series held at the Stevens Centre did well initially in bringing in films that were ignored by other multiplexes in town. I can imagine a 3-4 screen theatre that sits 150-300 people with a cafe lobby and perhaps some nice touches like bigger and plusher seating. The theatre will also serve as a venue for the River Run festival which tends to scatter its films all over the downtown area in venues that were not set up as theatres in the first place. Again, this gives downtown another entertainment option which if it brings people in from outside of the downtown area, will give a boost to the clubs and restaurants.
• Book store (new or used) - I like to think that a downtown without a bookstore of any sort can not be considered a true downtown especially one with an arts district. Despite being the Internet Age, people still read books, magazines and newspapers. Yet there is no outlet downtown that sells these items inclusively. I would like to think that as part of the downtown experience, someone living at the Gallery Lofts gets up on a Saturday morning, stroll over to the Arts District, buys a few papers, walks to Chelsee’s for a cappuccino, have a relaxing read of the news and smile to himself that it is moments like this that he was glad that he moved downtown. As for the type of bookstore, I would favor an used bookstore with a newspaper and periodical section as I think people would still go to Barnes and Noble or Borders to pick up the new releases of books unless this bookstore specialises in a certain subject like cooking or children’s books.
• Gourmet Food Shop - for better or for worse, the new residential developments downtown seem fixated on the higher end of the price scale which tend to be the market for young upscale professionals and well-off retirees. One aspect of this market is that they take their dining seriously but probably can not afford to eat out all of the time. A gourmet food store like a Fresh Market and not a grocery store per se like Kingz Downtown Market, that can offer a variety of expensive food stuffs like imported cheeses and meats may do well. 6th and Vine I think has a side business in retailing wine and there is the Farmers’ Market nearby on 6th Street during the growing season. That helps provide for part of the need. Being a high margin type of store will go part way to address the low volumes of the local market. It may act also a store of last resort for the restaurants in the area if they run out of something during the course of the day.

This is by no means an exhaustive list. There are far more types of things downtown Winston-Salem needs to become more fully rounded and not necessarily retail either. A park or two and a new library are also important I think to bring downtown Winston up to the level of great downtown cities.