[Vision2020] Businesses come and businesses go -- so?

[Joan Opyr]

Phil takes as evidence of downtown Moscow's ill health that some 
businesses have closed.  As any MBA will tell you, four out of five 
small businesses fail within the first five years; the statistics are 
even worse for restaurants.  The point I would emphasize is not that 
four out of five small businesses fail, but that one out of five 
succeed.  If we ensure that our Central Business District remains 
retail, parking, and pedestrian-friendly, then new businesses will 
continue to come and take the place of the old and the unsuccessful.

I shop downtown quite a bit, and I have not noticed any significant 
amount of retail space sitting empty and decrepit.  It is far from 
depressing to walk down Main Street from Third to Sixth.  In fact, it's 
quite cheerful -- and instructive.  Stop at Hodgins and the Guitar's 
Friend.  Get a cup of coffee at Zumé.  (Yes, Zumé.  I recommend 
supporting the only currently legal use of the historic Skattaboe 
Building.  Perhaps it will encourage Doug Wilson to stop thinking "This 
is my Oxford" and start thinking "Central Business District.")  Have 
lunch at the Casa or the Breakfast Club or the Old Peking.  Shop at the 
Goodwill.  Soon, you'll also be able to shop at the Moscow Food Co-Op 
-- its opening will be a sure and certain boon to downtown retail.  
Paradise Creek Bicycles, The Abode (a great new store selling hemp 
clothing, recycled stationery, natural paints and other non-toxic 
household products), Bookpeople, Mikey's, Moscow Pawn, Tie-Dye 
Everything, Wheatberries, a styling salon, and Sweet Streak Lingerie 
are all open and friendly and ready for business.  Phil might feel that 
he's walking through a morgue, but I'd suggest that's because he's 
wearing his death-colored glasses.  If he were to stop for a 
double-shot mocha at every coffee shop from Zumé to One World, perhaps 
he might perk up a bit and see what was really before him rather than 
the parade of retail corpses he seems to prefer.

If Phil really wants to learn something about business failure and 
empty retail space, he should pay a visit to the Palouse Empire Mall.  
The old Emporium location seems to be cursed, as does the corner store 
once owned by the Nature Sport.  Businesses in those spaces seem to 
open and close with great regularity.  Of course, the fact that one can 
smell sheep and cow manure within the mall does tend to diminish the 
high-end retail experience.  Fine clothes, fine dining, and the fine 
smell of the city's "turd twirler" at the sewage treatment plant across 
the highway are perhaps not a recipe for retail success.  (And yet all 
the mall management can seem to think about is cutting down the trees 
along the highway, which, if left to grow, might help filter some of 
that unpleasant odor.  Please, stop with the chain-saws and the 
bull-dozers.  How about planting a few hardy Magnolias?)

Nope.  You can keep the Palouse Empire Mall.  Give me downtown 
shopping, with the occasional catalog supplement and a trip to glorious 
Tri-State, truly "Idaho's Most Interesting Store."

Joan Opyr/Auntie Establishment
www.auntie-establishment.com

PS: If Phil is so deeply concerned about my becoming a media 
conglomerate (because Brother Carl and I have a two-hour, low-wattage, 
unfair and unbalanced Sunday radio show on KRFP Moscow) then I suggest 
that he stop whining and do something about it, like making an effort 
to get his own views on the air.  KRFP is *always* advertising for DJs. 
  Phil need only drop by the station or email Leigh Robartes 
(leigh at krfp.org) and apply for his own show.  He can then devote two 
hours a week of his own time to playing Grateful Dead albums and 
telling everyone within range (on a good day, that's Steakhouse Hill to 
Risenaeur) exactly what he thinks about whatever subject catches his 
fancy.  Judaism, kaolin mining, Budweiser versus Miller Lite . . . no 
one except the FCC will make any attempt to censor him.  Of course, 
Phil can't make people listen to him anymore than Brother Carl or I 
can; it's up to him to make some effort to be entertaining.  But that's 
his problem.  Perhaps if he expanded his repertoire, added The Doors or 
some early Pink Floyd, and spoke coherently and evinced some evidence 
of a sense of humor or a genuine love and concern for Moscow, then he 
might find that "The Phil Nisbet Kaolin Mining Grateful Dead Comedy 
Hour" was a great success.