By Jim Bloch
“The downtown is not thriving,” said Steve Fernandez, who owns the Country Style Market at 310 Huron Avenue in the heart of Port Huron’s downtown. “You understand? We’re dying.”
There’s nothing like stocked shelves and empty cash registers to make small business owners wonder about their immediate financial futures. The lack of shoppers — amid several empty storefronts — is spooking shopkeepers in downtown Port Huron and they have brought their worries to the city council.
Fernandez and two other business owners downtown addressed the city council at its regular meeting Nov. 24. City Manager James Freed subsequently rebuked Fernandez for his remarks.
Country Style Market
“We’re not thriving,” said Fernandez. “I’ve been in business on that corner for 3.9 years and I don’t know if I’m going to be in business next month. There is no thriving downtown. It’s dirty. It’s broke. There’s incredible blight over the downtown. I’ve counted a dozen streetlights in a four-block area that are burnt out.”
The next day, Fernandez received a text message from City Manager James Freed, which Fernandez read at the Dec. 8 regular meeting of the city council.
“Please rewatch your comments from last night,” Freed wrote. “Very disappointed in how nasty and negative you were toward downtown. Calling our downtown dying, blighted and ugly was very unfair… Your scorched earth rhetoric is not helpful, and it hurts other businesses.”
Fernandez said he had invested $4 million of his own money and loans into that “dead corner,” which had been boarded up for seven years before he moved in.
“So, I think I have a right to speak up,” Fernandez said.
Fernandez said the Freed’s failure to take criticism to heart, and his efforts to curtail negative comments at council meetings, could result in “an organic uprising” in the city.
“I wholeheartedly stand by the text message I sent you,” said Freed Dec. 8. “We believe in our downtown. That’s why the city of Port Huron, this council, gave you a $250,000 tax break. $78,000 of it was local funds that we gave back to you for your development.”
Elite Feet and Elite Treats
Greg Whitican owns Elite Feet and Elite Treats downtown. Whitican said that he has given up complaining about e-bikes, mini-bikes and go-carts buzzing along the sidewalk in front of his stores.
“Last weekend, my wife and I came home Sunday afternoon about 4 p.m.,” Whitican told the council. “We’re walking up to the door of 327 and she says, Stop, listen to that. So, I stopped. The city’s got the speaker system going again downtown.”
Whitican expected holiday music. Instead, he and his wife got an earful of “Crazy Bi***” by Buckcherry.
“I couldn’t believe it,” said Whitican.
Even with family-unfriendly music, the main problem remains the lack of shopping opportunities downtown.
“Elite Feet’s been downtown for 15 years now, probably one of the oldest retail stores downtown,” said Whitican. ‘I love being downtown. We bring people in from all over the Thumb, all the way to Flint, down in the city. They come; they get their shoes from us. It’s great.”
But there are almost no other retail outlets for shoppers to enjoy.
“I thought our main goal downtown was to bring in retail and shoppers,” he said.
Instead, there are plenty of food service businesses and increasing numbers of financial service businesses, such as insurance agents, realtors, underwriters and accountants.
“I don’t know how you guys could think our downtown is vibrant,” Whitican said. “Looking up here, I can see only two people who have visited my store personally. Guys, just stop in and say, Hi. Nobody does.”
Suzanne’s
“James (Freed) came out to the outlet (mall) to get me downtown,” said Susanne Kuhn, who owns the women’s clothing shop Suzanne’s. “I want you to help keep me downtown. Downtown is not thriving. We are looking for help. We’re not getting any help. I almost had the Big One at 76 years old when I listened to the music. I said to Greg, Was that the F-word and he said yes. I don’t think any of you has been in my store. Maybe (Mayor) Anita (Ashford) has been in. We need everybody to pull together and not work against us.”
Kuhn said that there has been a hole as big as the podium in front of her store since 2016.
“I’m always picking up everybody’s trash down there,” said Kuhn. “And the parking in the back? A moron must have thought of that… Customers come, they cannot get in, they can’t get out.”
Freed’s response
“We didn’t even know our speakers were working,” said Freed. “I’m not sure where that music was coming from. The speakers on the north end of downtown haven’t worked and don’t work currently. We’ll find out where that music was coming from, but I’m not sure it was city speakers.”
Freed said that the streetlights are owned by DTE and are repaired only when 30-50 of them are nonfunctioning. Freed pointed to the lack of crime of downtown and all the free parking.
“In the last 12 years downtown alone has seen over $100 million of investment, hundreds and hundreds of new lofts,” Freed said. “A thousand people have moved downtown and call it their home. Someone said there’s nothing to do downtown. We have the Wrigley Center with live entertainment (and) bowling. We have ax throwing. We have the Foundry, the interactive art gallery where you can go and make art. You can go and line dance. You can go see a comedy show. You can go to McMorran which has hundreds and hundreds of events all through the year. I think we have like nine venues downtown that are entertainment. We have a lot of amazing restaurants.”
Retail is a different story.
“Retail is struggling across the country,” Freed said. “We are not immune from the global shift to e-commerce. I talk to downtowns all across the state and they’re facing the same thing. It is very dire for small retail stores to survive. As much as we say we support downtown, how many Amazon packages got delivered to your house this week? More than you bought from downtown. We have to work with our retailers, but the fact is we are local government. We are in charge of police, fire, water, sewer and infrastructure. We are not the chamber of commerce. We can give out some façade grants (and) we’ve done that hundreds and hundreds of times downtown… The idea that downtown is going to be filled with retail like it was 50-60 years ago – I’m just not sure that’s a reality in today’s local economy.”
Jim Bloch is a freelance writer based in St. Clair, Michigan. Contact him at bloch.jim@gmail.com.
