Handling hard times
Downtown — great location but some problems

Copyright © 2008
Gallup Independent
By Elizabeth Hardin-Burrola
Staff writer

GALLUP — The location is great and so is the volume of foot and vehicle traffic. The lack of parking spaces continues to be a problem as does the over abundance of intoxicated street people.

The place? Downtown Gallup, of course. Almost everyone has an opinion on the virtues and vices of Gallup’s downtown, but on Saturday afternoon a canvass a half-dozen business owners brought opinions about the pros and cons of doing business on West Coal Avenue.

Prime location

Agreeing with the real estate mantra — location, location, location — all the interviewed business owners expressed the belief that downtown Gallup is a good central location for a business.

City Electric Shoe Shop has been in business 85 years, and co-owner Tony Bonaguidi likes the store’s proximity to Historic Route 66 and the people that attracts. Bonaguidi, like Frank Sanchez Sr. of De Luxe Hair Stylists, Ryan Quintana of Quintana’s Keyboard Music, and Michelle Smith of Life Touch photography studio, all agreed that their downtown locations benefit from the high volume of foot and vehicle traffic.

Smith said she opened her studio about five or six years ago, after first commuting from Albuquerque for a few years and then operating the business out of her Gallup home. She picked the storefront because of its high traffic and high exposure location. As soon as she relocated, Smith said, business picked up. “Wow,” she recalled thinking, “we couldn’t have picked a better location.”

The De Luxe has been on Coal Avenue for more than 40 years. Owner Sanchez cited the number of good downtown business neighbors he has, a view that is shared by Kristina Kerley of Kristina’s Antique Touch and Michael Schmaltz of Michael’s Jewelry Workshop.

“It’s a community feeling down here,” Schmaltz agreed. “All the owners know each other... and send each other customers.” “I don’t think I’d ever have a business if I wasn’t downtown,” added Schmaltz, who is about to move from his current location to the space just vacated by Gallup High Mesa Bikes and Gear.

Need for variety

But in spite of its central location, small businesses open and go out of business with regularity. A number of those interviewed expressed concern about the number of empty storefronts, the need for greater retail variety, and the need for landlords to upgrade their buildings but lower their rent.

Bonaguidi believes the addition of the Coal Street Pub and Sammy C’s Rockin’ Sports Bar have brought more people downtown and improved the city’s nightlife. But he and several other business owners said they would like to see a greater variety of businesses also move in to attract a greater variety of customers.

According to Bonaguidi, the Wild Sage Food Co-op was an asset because it brought in “a good mix of people” to his block. “We don’t see those people anymore,” he explained, since the natural food store evolved into the La Montanita Co-op Food Market and moved two blocks east.
Leaf Ashley, a jeweler apprentice who works for Schmaltz, voiced a common complaint that some downtown landlords charge unreasonably high rent for their store spaces, making it difficult for businesses to stay afloat.

On the other hand, Smith, who moved her photo studio into the Wild Sage space, said her rent is cheaper than if she was in a strip mall. It allowed her to move her business out of her home, she said, without raising her prices.

Parking crunch

However, if all those empty storefronts did get rented, the lack of parking would get worse. As it is, Smith, Sanchez, and Quintana all cited the lack of parking spaces as their biggest business challenge.

“If we had more parking, we’d have more people,” Sanchez said. He wishes Gallup had room for some angled parking spaces downtown.

Although Gallup does have several public parking lots, Sanchez said those lots aren’t helpful to many truck owners from nearly reservation communities. Those people often carry tools and equipment in the back of their trucks, along with groceries and other consumer goods. Because of theft concerns, he said, those truck owners need on-the-street-parking so they can keep an eye on their vehicles.

In the past, Sanchez added, the problem was compounded by business owners and their employees who parked on the street, leaving no parking spaces for customers. The city has helped the situation by enforcing time limits and issuing $25 parking tickets on randomly selected days, he said.

In contrast, Bonaguidi holds a positive view of the congested traffic and lack of parking. Those are good signs, he said, indicating that customers are coming downtown.

Street harassment

And then there are the on-going problems caused by intoxicated people on the street — panhandling, harassment, vandalism, thefts, and violence. Although longtime Gallup residents say the situation is better than it was decades ago, Kerley, Schmaltz, and Ashley cited the intoxication problem as their biggest challenge to doing business downtown.

Kerley echoed the commonly expressed fear of walking through the Downtown Walkway, and said she frequently has to call police to pick up intoxicated individuals who are passed out on the sidewalk or plastered against her storefront windows.

“Walking from the car to here is an adventure,” said Ashley of the intoxicated people she has to dodge on her walk to and from the shop. “It’s getting crazier,” she added, “It’s more aggressive.” Ashley said because the street people see her on a regular basis, they target her with verbal abuse. Both Schmaltz and Ashley said their vehicles have been damaged by downtown vandals.

Intoxicated street people routinely run off tourists, said a frustrated Kerley. Tourists become frightened, get in their vehicles, and leave town, she said, and those who do make it into her store, ask her why the city of Gallup doesn’t do anything to alleviate the problem.

“I think the tourists can’t wait to get out of town,” Schmaltz agreed.

Schmaltz would like to see more of a police presence downtown and see the intoxicated people moved off the streets. Ashley, who said she believes most of the problems originate with the American Bar, said she would like to see the bar move elsewhere.

Downtown programs

Over the last couple of decades, Gallup has seen its share of programs that were started to improve conditions for the downtown business community. Whether they have made a lasting, positive impact is up for debate, and several of business owners declined to comment on the question.

Sanchez said he believes the city’s addition of the downtown murals, the planting of trees and summertime flowers, and vigilance in picking up trash have all helped draw more people back downtown.

Kerley, who used to participate in the monthly Arts Crawl, said the event once brought out large numbers of people downtown although few actually made purchases. The community street festivals of recent years were good for downtown businesses, she said, but they aren’t being held anymore. Kerley singled out Elmo Baca, formerly the director of Gallup’s Downtown Development Group in the 1990s, of being one of the best promoters of Gallup’s downtown.

Kerley will be closing her store in the next six months after 16 years in business. She said she has been a proponent of closing off Coal Avenue to traffic, adding more trees, benches, and trash cans, and allowing street vendors to set up shop. Comparing the idea to Albuquerque’s touristy Old Town Plaza, she said those changes would help create a pedestrian marketplace that would attract local shoppers and tourists.

Unfortunately, Kerley added, “Gallup’s been talking about that since I’ve been downtown.”