For many cities, Main Street makes the first impression. And Vancouver’s may be impressing the right people, since it was recently named among the best main streets on the West Coast by Sunset Magazine.
The California-based lifestyle magazine lauded the city’s thoroughfare for its historic buildings, diverse food and drink offerings and arts on display, including its new, colorful storm drains.
“That good ‘ole historic feeling’s still alive, thanks to red-brick buildings like the Clark County Historical Museum, that nod to Vancouver’s fur-trading and military-barrack days,” wrote an unnamed author of the article.
Vancouver was one of four runners-up, alongside Sheridan, Wyo., and California cities Carlsbad and Petaluma. Third Street in McMinnville, Ore., was named the best.
The award came as part of the magazine’s “Show Us Your Main Street” contest. Vancouver earned its runner-up status in part thanks to a video produced by the tourism organization Visit Vancouver USA.
Kudos like these would not have been expected even 10 years ago, according to Lee Rafferty, executive director of Vancouver’s Downtown Association.
“The air really went out of the tires when the economy crashed,” she said, adding that Main Street lost customers, and then it lost businesses entirely. “Now we’re getting business back.”
A main street and, by extension, a city’s downtown are important to any city, Rafferty said, and she joked that a tourist doesn’t get in a taxi first thing and ask to be taken to a strip mall.
“You usually want to understand the essence of a place by going to downtown,” she said. “From my perspective, the most important thing is the downtown. It should be the center of culture, the center of government. Its history, its beginnings and how people work with one another is usually demonstrated in how a downtown behaves.”
Main Street in Vancouver is home to numerous unique shops and buildings. Like the museum mentioned earlier, there is the historic Kiggins Theatre and such places as Divine Consign and Boomerang that benefit charities.
Dan Wyatt, owner of Kiggins Theatre, said he relocated to downtown Vancouver 10 years ago in part because of the changes he saw going on in the area.
“The feature attraction of Main Street was that I was in love with the idea that I could walk over to a vibrant city center to grab a bite, visit a local comic shop or watch a movie, and I got that,” he said in an email.
The rejuvenation has been helped by a growing number of events in the downtown area, said Rafferty, who co-owned Spanky’s Consignment there for years. She thanks the city of Vancouver for helping get those events launched.
“There are (community) runs and art shows like the Recycled Arts Festival — that was a huge draw,” she said. “The city decided they were going to put an emphasis on downtown so people would be pleasantly surprised. You reintroduce them to the environment and the vibe.”
The Vancouver Downtown Association is a member of the Main Street Program, a program established in 1980 by the National Trust for Historic Preservation to restore downtowns across the country.
