Over the last few months, downtown’s Strawberry Square has seen an uptick in new tenants occupying space inside the complex and along picturesque 3rd Street, between Market and Walnut streets.
To Harristown Development Corp., the real estate firm that owns the large retail/office complex, the increase indicates a change in demographics that is positioning the city for another renaissance, but driven more by new residents than commuters.
In August, the crepe-making Au Bon Lieu opened in one of the 3rd Street shops; next door, a new salon, Hair at the Square, has replaced another one, and a few doors down, Sadiddy, women’s fashions and shoe store, opened in November.
Inside, on the fourth floor where Harrisburg University’s administrative offices were once located, PPL Services Corp., the utility’s government relations arm, has opened an office with 2,000 square feet of space.
In the empty shop at Strawberry Square’s Market Street entrance, Market on Market, a grocery convenience store, will open in March, as will Tropical Smoothie Cafe, a franchise to replace the food court’s Bill’s Big Burgers, which closed in November.
An improving economy is one factor behind the increase in retail tenants, but Neal West, senior vice president at Harristown Enterprises Inc., the corporation’s business arm, believes there’s more to it.
“I think one of the things that this is being driven by is more residences and students,” West said. “The student influence and the young folks living downtown are having a positive impact on retailers.”
Careim Williams, owner of Sadiddy, which sells the latest fashions in women’s clothing and shoes, located her shop next to Strawberry Square’s 3rd Street entrance to meet demand and capture the high-foot traffic.
“The market I’m targeting is young professionals,” she said.
Williams, a Philadelphia native who has been working in fashion retail for more than seven years, said she wanted to be in the city to expand its diversity in retail fashions. “I just wanted to bring something that’s trendy,” she said.
Harristown, a nonprofit with a mission to revitalize the city’s business and cultural core, is a good barometer of economic change. For more than 38 years it has built and developed most of the major projects in the downtown area.
With the conversion of the former Governor’s Hotel and the former Kunkel Building, at 4th and Market and 3rd and Market respectively, into market-rate apartments now used by Harrisburg University, there are 180 students living downtown.
Then there’s last month’s opening of COBA, the apartment house on 3rd Street in Midtown, as well as the work now underway to convert the Barto Building at 3rd and State into condominiums, and the Glass Factory at 3rd and Muench into market-rate apartments.
“We’re feeling pretty optimistic that good things are happening in the city, despite the (city’s) financial cloud,” said Brad Jones, Harristown’s vice president.
The 10-year-old International House, a Harristown property that now has 150 beds for its visitors to the city, further builds the critical mass retailers need to thrive downtown and elsewhere in the city, Jones said.
In a reverse of decades of urban dwellers moving to the suburbs, cities nationwide have seen a steady increase in aging baby boomers, young people and students moving in to be close to culture and services. Harrisburg appears to be part of that trend.
Another indication, West said, is that for 50 percent of the market seeking to reside in the city, good public schools is not a factor, at least at the moment.
Harrisburg, like most cities its size, has long struggled to get retailers downtown, but that struggle may become less difficult as more buildings are converted or restored for residential living to meet the demand.
“We think that’s the trend,” Jones said. “We can balance out the city’s top-heavy office space with more residences.”
Developer Dan Deitchman of Brickbox Enterprises leads development of new residential units in the city with COBA, Kunkel and Barto, to name a few. He has done so, he said, because of this trend. It’s the same reason Skynet Property Management is converting the old Glass Factory into apartments.
From Midtown to Uptown, pockets of neighborhoods are undergoing transformations that are bringing new residences and businesses. Harristown sees it now occurring downtown.
“Downtown is working its way back,” West said, and noted the Rite Aid Pharmacy on Market Street across from Strawberry Square, which for years closed at 5 p.m., is now staying open until 7 p.m., six days a week.
