Downtown Alamosa is set for a change on Monday when students attending Alamosa Alternative High School arrive for the opening of their new school building at Main Street and San Juan Avenue.
Downtown will then change again come late summer – in August-September when construction is completed and the SpringHill Suites hotel at Sixth Street and State Avenue opens.
For downtown merchants, it’s all good. Except for the parking. Downtown merchants still hate what the city of Alamosa did when it narrowed the one-way Main Street to create more friction with vehicles, which city leaders had hoped would lead to a more-pedestrian friendly downtown.
Credit: The Citizen
It hasn’t, said Kyle Woodward, owner of Woody’s Q Shack. It’s doubtful the city and the state highway department will do anything to change the Main Street design, but that would be the one request of downtown merchants.
Otherwise, downtown business owners like what they see. Or, at least have a wait-and-see attitude as the students show up for school, hotel guests eventually circulate, and Valley-Wide Health relocates more of its white-collar workforce to its new downtown space at the renovated historic courthouse on Fourth Street and San Juan Avenue.
“I think they’re doing good things for the kids and so I want to be positive for that,” said Tammy Abbey, owner of the popular Big Valley Hobbytown store, of the Alamosa students who will begin attending school across Main Street.
“But I’m also one of those that is looking for the problem. I’m concerned with how it will affect my business. It’s one of those things. It’s taking place and I have to wait and see what happens before I know.”
The downtown school is a culmination of years of efforts by the Alamosa School District to purchase the building that once housed Friday Health Plans, and before that served as offices for accounting firm Wall Smith and Bateman, Inc., and long before that was home to the F.W. Woolworth five-and-dime store and lunch counter.
“It is with immense pride that I announce the completion of the Alamosa Alternative and Online School project,” Alamosa School Superintendent Diana Jones said in announcing the school opening. The school district is planning an open house for Wednesday, March 25.
Alamosa Alternative High has an enrollment of 49 and Alamosa Online has another 35 students, according to Colorado Department of Education figures. The alternative high students will show up every day during the school year to the downtown school and the online students when they need to check in with a school administrator.
“I think it’s much needed and I’m glad they’re doing it,” said Woodward, whose BBQ restaurant is directly across on Main Street. “I think it will be a good addition to downtown. We’ve never really had any issues with students in here. I’m not really concerned about the students.”
Jones and the school district staff occupy the top floor of the Main Street building and the school, with an entrance off San Juan, is located on the street level. The school district has also established a retail space at the front of the building on Main Street for a student-run business it eventually will put in to meet the city’s requirement to have retail space on the bottom floor.
“We are excited that the School District is close to having the construction project done and is able to move students into a much better space that is designed to meet their needs,” said Alamosa City Manager Heather Sanchez. “We appreciate the school district meeting the requirements set by City Council that includes a dedicated space for retail. We continue to have conversations with the School District as it relates to meeting parking requirements and will periodically check in on enrollment numbers to ensure the codes are being met as the school district explores alternatives to increase parking limits. It is always nice to see a large, vacant building become occupied.”
It’s the downtown hotel that really has merchants excited and curious about the next phase of Alamosa’s core area. Some said they were considering adjusting store hours once the hotel opens, while others said they would wait to see what adjustments might be needed.
Colorado Grille relocated to Main Street from its restaurant on Fourth Street to better position itself for hotel guests. Treasure Alley, Hobbytown and other downtown merchants all see more foot traffic from the hotel as an important development.
“As a restaurant we’re really excited about the hotel. With all the other main hotels primarily west of town it will be good to have that traffic downtown,” said Woodward at Woody’s Q Shack.
“We’re already trying to think of ways and talk about ways to staff up. We just don’t know,” he said. “There’s going to be a lot of questions that need to be answered, and we don’t really know what the answers are going to be because we’ve never had a hotel or that much traffic increase downtown.”
Tammy Abbey thinks the hotel foot traffic will be the thing to watch. Her Hobbytown store is already open until 7 p.m., which she hopes hotel guests will find convenient.
“I know when I’m away somewhere and I stay in a hotel, I walk to whatever I can and then go back to it. So I’m hoping to see some good things come from that,” she said.