Bye, Bye, Fulton Mall!
How nice it was to see the once-mighty Fresno Bee just confirm what we reported here months ago — and what has been obvious to anyone who cared to walk what’s left of the Fulton Mall — that the project to re-open Fulton Street is, indeed, far behind schedule.
There’s no crime in that — construction delays are common, and no one could have foreseen that we’d have all that wet weather in the first part of the year.
And there’s no “crime” in the project itself — getting rid of the mall is the right move, because it’s been obvious for years that downtown is in serious trouble and needs something — anything — to jump-start things.
No, the real deception about this $20 million project is in the claims made by city officials — past and present — and parroted by the always-compliant Bee — that somehow, this is a “game-changer” for downtown. Re-open Fulton Street, they say, and folks will magically start flocking downtown again.
Now, let’s be honest here: That’s a lie, and my guess is, those peddling that lie know it. Or, perhaps, to be more charitable — and I’m nothing if I’m not charitable — they’re simply and mindlessly “rooting” for that outcome, given that nothing that’s happened downtown in recent years has been the “game-changer.”
Let me be clear: I grew up in Fresno and spent a great part of my youth going downtown and walking both Fulton Street and, after the mall opened in 1964, the mall. Fulton was vibrant back then — as the black-and-white photo from 1965 shows. Every major department store was there — Montgomery Ward, Roos/Atkins, Penney’s. Gottschalks, Harry Coffee’s, Walter Smith, Berkeley’s, Newberry’s, Woolworth’s and more.
The lovely old sky-rises — all built in the 1910’s and ’20’s — housed the offices of doctors and dentists and lawyers and more. Bank of America had two major buildings on Fulton, and Guarantee Savings stood proudly at the corner of Fresno Street and Fulton.
But that was then. As I’ve reported before, downtown died the day the City Council approved construction of Fashion Fair “way out north” at Shaw and First. Yes, downtown had been struggling before that approval, but it was doomed afterward. More and more developers began building homes around the “new” Fashion Fair neighborhoods, and as they did, the center of Fresno’s retail business shifted north as well. Eventually, every major retailer fled downtown, leaving Fulton — once the most important retail location in the city — the devastated mess it is now.
Take a look at the photo of the soon-to-be re-opened portion of Fulton Street. It’s taken from the same angle as the black-and-white photo above — though obviously from ground level. You’re looking south on Fulton from Tuolumne. Virtually all the buildings in the black-and-white picture are gone.
What you can’t see in the “new” picture — is what’s happened along the full six blocks of the mall. Those grand old sky rises are virtually all empty. Many of the buildings on the mall now house inexpensive (make that, cheap) businesses selling inexpensive (read that, cheap) products. Many of them have iron bars over their windows. Many other storefronts are vacant.
The “new” Fulton Street — which, we are now told, may be fully re-opened by early autumn — will be a narrow, two-lane thoroughfare with parallel parking on the sides and with some of the mall’s original artwork on wide “sidewalks.” That’s all well and good, and I’ll look forward to walking on those sidewalks.
But, please, someone — anyone — tell me how re-opening a narrow six-block stretch of street that features lots of lousy-looking businesses — along with a generous helping of homeless people — will become the “magic elixir” that is, somehow, going to lure all those folks who live north of Shaw or Herndon — you know, all those folks with money — back downtown.
Please don’t parrot those mindless downtown boosters who just “know” that this project is the one they’ve long waited for. They’re just wishing and hoping and have no clue — none whatsoever — what impact this project will have.
Again — I’m in favor of re-opening Fulton because doing “something” is better than doing “nothing.” And, yes, I fully “get it” that downtown merchants and their PR people have to hype the project as the “end all and be all” because they’ve had precious little to celebrate downtown for awhile now.
But can the rest of us — including the once-mighty Bee — take a more realistic view of what re-opening Fulton means? No, it’s not going to lead to a “rebirth” of downtown. Yes, it will make it easer for all those “money” folks north of Shaw and Herndon to trek downtown, drive past all those horrible-looking storefronts on Fulton — and head right back Up North, as they ask themselves why they came downtown and why they’d return.
Sorry. That’s just the way it is.