Faces and Places: New Businesses for a New Year

They are age-old questions for any business district: How much commercial real estate is the right amount? How do you fill storefronts? What should it look like?

Nationally known stores like chain pharmacies drive much-needed traffic but take away from a uniquely local aesthetic. A downtown where you can pick between three different sushi bars is great for your unagi fix, but not so much when you need a bolt or hammer on a Sunday afternoon.

And even diverse retail strips can suffer without the amenities to support them, like decent parking, sending frustrated shoppers to the nearest superstore with its football-field lot.

It's a complicated formula to master for any town.

We took an afternoon to take the pulse of downtown Harrison, asking local merchants what new businesses they'd like to see come to town in 2010.

Sal Di Fiore, owner of Harrison Pizza and Pasta at 248 Halstead Ave., is one business owner who welcomes new faces to the commercial mix, knowing that more people walking past his door means more slices out the door. 

"They are building a CVS down the street and I think that is a great idea. We need something like that to get people here," DiFiore said, taking a quick break from his work at the restaurant.

Nearby, Andy Jung, owner of Harrison Cleaners at 271 Halstead Ave., wondered if clothing shops or a shopping center might work to bring more faces to Harrison, but realized that might be a double-edged sword.

"That can also make downtown crowded and the town would not want that," Jung said.

Right now, the mix skews heavily in favor of service and food, something that hasn't escaped the notice of Jason Manstream, owner of Gold Rush Jewelers on 267 Halstead Ave. He thought clothing and toy stores might improve the mix.

But Halstead Avenue is just one part of the business district, said Sharon MacInnes, owner of What a Girl Wants, a tween clothing store on 242 Harrison Ave., something the forces that combine to produce new businesses should recognize.

"Contractors focus on Halstead Avenue and they need to realize that Harrison Avenue is part of the shopping district," she said. "We have restaurants, wine stores and all of the public parking."

MacInnes would love to see a bookstore or a shoe store come to Harrison.

"There has to be more downtown service," she said. "I think that if they brought the theater back down here, we would get more people down here."