Illustration by Rich Hauck
In the early days of TheBurg, I helped out with our monthly distribution, delivering copies to hundreds of locations throughout central PA.
Not that we founders wanted to do this dirty, tiring work ourselves, but we really had no choice, given the tight finances of our start-up newspaper.
But this exhausting, tedious task had an upside. Relatively new to Harrisburg, I met many interesting and hard-working people, mostly small business owners who agreed to carry our new publication.
I tell this story now because one of those people was Bill Cologie, the long-time owner of Transit News, a newsstand/convenience store tucked inside of Harrisburg’s historic train station. Right from the start, TheBurg went like hotcakes from his stand, offering me some hope that we could make this Burg thing work, if only we could stick it out.
Once, I joked with Bill that we were in this terrible news business together. It’s just that I published it and he sold it.
Nearly 15 years later, Bill believes that he’s reached the end of his news-selling line. In January, he said that he was looking for a buyer and, if he didn’t find one, would shut down his stand.
His business, he said, never recovered from the pandemic, as commuter traffic coming through the station has not fully bounced back.
“Our customer count is only two-thirds of what it was before the pandemic, and we’re only seeing a small fraction of the state employees, most working from home, who used to commute to work daily by bus or train,” he said.
At one time, you couldn’t walk half-a-block in downtown Harrisburg without running into someplace selling a newspaper. Today, the city’s last remaining newsstand soon may shut down for good.
My general opinion is that cities always are changing. It’s one of their defining traits. People move in, people move out. Businesses open and close. A neighborhood may change so much to be almost unrecognizable from one generation to the next.
Sure, we old-timers may be nostalgic for the days when we could stroll down the street, plunk down some spare change and walk away with a paper thick with articles, features and ads. But is the potential loss of Harrisburg’s last newsstand really a tragedy?
Maybe not, but Bill’s situation is indicative of something much larger—the crisis facing urban cores, emphatically including Harrisburg’s, from the continuing fallout of COVID-19.
“I confess I am still surprised that they aren’t treating the remote work revolution like the five-alarm fire it is,” wrote Washington Post columnist Megan McArdle in a recent piece urging the country’s mayors to take seriously the threat to their cities from workers no longer commuting to their jobs.
So, what’s to be done? How can downtowns, particularly Harrisburg’s, adjust to this new reality? Regular readers of this column may not be surprised that I have a few thoughts on the matter.
First, I would like to see Harrisburg publicly commit to increasing the population of the center city, as downtown’s future is almost certainly more residential than office. Moreover, I think that setting a definite number, however speculative, would help keep eyes fixed on that goal.
Recently, Washington, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, faced with a similar challenge, asserted that she wanted 15,000 more residents in her downtown. I’ve often called Harrisburg a micro-version of D.C., so I would suggest a goal of 1,000 residents here, an ambitious, yet achievable goal over the next decade.
Secondly, Harrisburg should do what it takes to make downtown development, especially residential development, more attractive. This could mean loosening density restrictions, making office-to-residential conversions less cumbersome and revisiting other aspects of the zoning code that dampen development.
Harrisburg also should consider adjusting its tax abatement rules. The program, in place since 2016, has worked fairly well for rehabbing existing structures, but less so for new development. Developers have complained that the program contains mandates that significantly increase their building costs, nullifying any potential benefit. And what’s the point of a program if it’s not being used?
Thirdly, I suggest making downtown a more attractive place to live by paving alleys, fixing sidewalks, putting in bike lanes and slowing down traffic on 2nd Street, perhaps even eliminating a through-lane. A small road or alley could be closed to traffic and turned into an attractive, pedestrian-only restaurant/shopping street. A few pocket parks and more public art also would soften up the landscape and contribute immensely to downtown’s look and livability.
Lastly, Harrisburg, while boosting population, should not forget about downtown’s appeal as a tourist and nightlife destination. People still want to visit urban centers, even if they don’t especially want to work there anymore.
In fact, the city, along with the Downtown Improvement District, has been adding events to draw people in. Now that the pandemic has abated, there may be opportunities to add to this calendar. Harrisburg should also focus like a laser on recruiting businesses related to entertainment, dining, culture and the arts.
Recently, Harrisburg City Council held interviews to select a new council member to fill an open seat. During this process, one council member, Jocelyn Rawls, asked all the candidates to share their “vision” for Harrisburg.
I thought this was an excellent question, one that all of our elected officials should ponder and articulate. If I were to answer that question, I would certainly have a lot to say about housing, streets and economic development, but, right at the top, would be this—what comes next for downtown Harrisburg?
Lawrance Binda is publisher/editor of TheBurg.
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