Saratoga News

Village should be heart of the community

Saratoga's quaint Village sometimes more closely resembles a ghost town than what it ought to be--the heart of the community.

Shopping in a downtown area, even one as small as Big Basin Way, should be an energizing experience, not a depressing one. In the same way that it's uncomfortable to watch a play in a theater that's nearly empty, it's unsettling to walk around in a business district that doesn't seem to be doing any business.

And if it feels that way to visitors, what must it feel like to be doing business in such an area?

Unfortunately, Village merchants are faced with the classic dilemma: Which comes first, the chicken or the egg? Few residents or visitors come to the Village to shop because there just isn't much there.

In this era of busy schedules and the convenience of one-stop shopping, no one wants to waste time strolling around a village, quaint though it may be, if there aren't enough shops to make it worthwhile--or fun.

It's hard to attract new business--especially the kind that attracts walk-in traffic and thus helps create the energy that makes it fun to go shopping--because prospective tenants pick up pretty fast on the fact that there's no foot traffic in the Village.

While the idea of creating a retail mix that would bring residents to the Village to shop for everyday needs is an attractive notion, we're not convinced those kinds of stores would survive. The hardware store spoken of so nostalgically left because it couldn't survive selling a nut here and a bolt there. Saratogans took their serious hardware business to the likes of Home Depot.

We think a better strategy is to create a mix of specialty shops that would provide a fun shopping experience. The new Highline Imports seems to be doing just fine on Big Basin Way. Although their prices are out of reach for most, the business gets the customers it needs while still providing a fun experience for those who are only window shopping.

Art galleries, unique dress shops, home furnishings are the types of businesses that will bring foot traffic to the Village; they're the types of shops that might entice Montalvo concert-goers to include dining and strolling through the Village as part of a musical outing.

The chicken-or-egg dilemma is a formidable one, but Saratoga can't afford to let the heart of the community turn into a ghost town.

[ Back to Contents Page | Saratoga News Home Page | Archives ]