By Steve Cichon
steve@buffalostories.com
@stevebuffalo
Only months after AM&A’s sold its operations to Bon-Ton, Bon-Ton announced the closure of the Main Street downtown location which had been hemorrhaging money for quite some time.
More than 300 jobs were lost with the closure of the store as well as the warehouse behind the store across Washington Street.
The loss of the downtown anchor and landmark 20 ago this month served as a wakeup call to many, that downtown was still far from a full, healthy recovery.
City must keep encouraging a downtown neighborhood
Housing will not appear downtown just because experts say it should. The old chicken-and-egg issue is part of the picture. Downtown would be more attractive if there were more people on the street to create a feeling of security. Downtown would be more attractive if there were more service outlets such as good convenience food stores, convenient dry cleaners and other small service shops. But those things aren’t likely to appear until more people live downtown.
