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| Village of Penacook |
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Sixty years ago, downtown Penacook was a neighborhood shopping center, the place where families spent $9 in every $10 for their consumer needs. Not unlike the declining downtowns in more urban sites, Penacook's commercial environment failed to adapt to the automobile, a catalyst in shifted shopping habits. Today, that pre-Depression ratio of downtown spending is very nearly reversed.
Like their dwellers, communities pass through life cycles. Or, in an even closer analogy for a revitalization study, towns course through cycles quite similar to those of consumer products -- introduction, growth, maturity and decline.
If a community recognizes that one cycle is playing out and acts to shape the next cycle, then strategic planning -- a key to revitalization -- is taking place. This is what is happening in Penacook's downtown.
Once the strategies emerge, the primary tools applied are investment and marketing, not unlike products. Judiciously applied, these tools help create a new, differentiated and enhanced "product", the marketplace.
Penacook's existing Main Street economy can meet more of its user's needs -- users who include local residents as well as commuters and residents to the north. Population trends, public policy and technology have converged to produce the existing, generally positive situation.
| 1. | As the pods suggest, several potential expanded shopping areas can be identified in the downtown. The pod southwest along Washington Street is a logical area for development of household shopping, both to minimize Main Street traffic and to accommodate the increasing number of new houses being built behind and along Washington Street. | |||||
| 2. | The specialty shopping pod west of Boudreau Square is a concept which would follow the revitalized core and which would attract discretionary income spending. The concept has been called Penacook Common by the consultants. | |||||
| 3. | This segment -- which actually includes several more defined sub-segments -- is mostly retail professional space. Upper floors -- largely vacant along this area of Main Street -- are conducive to very attractive office space. | |||||
| 4. | This northwestern segment is accessible from the industrial segment (East Street) and from the household/shoppers segments south of it. It has been defined as reaching from the west side of Main Street at the bridge south to perhaps Charles Street. | |||||
| 5. | Recreational/entertainment activity is generally located in this area. | |||||
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