No Buildings Empty on the Square as City, Businesses Invest Millions in Downtown Redevelopment
No vacancies.
That’s the way it is for business buildings on the public square in Marion.
And that’s the way it is despite the opening of a new shopping center in Marion.
Merchants have spent more than $1 million for improvements in the downtown area, according to Milt Witt, Executive Vice President of the Chamber of Commerce.
He said that more than $21 million in improvements have been made to businesses in all of Marion during the last three years.
And the City of Marion has renovated the public square and spent more than $400,000 to renovate the public square and downtown area.
The last vacant building, formerly occupied by W.T. Grant Co. will soon be occupied by a J.C. Penney department store.
Filling the vacant building climaxes a four year campaign by the merchants to revitalize the downtown area.
Demolition of the old Williamson County Courthouse on the square in January 1972, caused concern among merchants that less traffic would be coming to the downtown area, Mayor Robert Butler said.
“They felt the courthouse was the focal point for the community. With the focal point moved, there was a strong likelihood of less traffic coming to the square. Their concern was understandable,” Butler said.
“But today there is more traffic than ever trying to get around the square,” he added.
What happened to keep traffic flowing into the downtown area is a story of cooperation between the city officials and the business community.
“The merchants decided we had to do something cooperative with the mayor and city commissioners,” said Gene Cox, owner of Cox Furniture.
“The courthouse replaced with the beautiful plaza was the result and every store on the square was remodeled,” Cox said.
Merchants pooled their money and hired an architect to design something for the former site of the old court house.
Architect Jack Goldman proposed a plaza, to be dominated by a red brick tower, the height of the old Williamson County Courthouse, with clock faces pointing in all directions like the old courthouse.
The city fathers bought the plaza idea put forward by the merchants and built the tower plaza. Benches provide seats for the old-timers, accustomed to gathering at the courthouse amid flowers growing from angular planters surrounding the tower and amid the trees and shrubs on the 130 foot diameter plaza.
Merchants conferred with the architect individually and remodeling began at one store and spread to another on the square.
Merchants placed trees and flowers in planters around the square.
The Bank of Marion finished a major remodeling that was planned before the courthouse was removed. The bank expanded to cover one entire corner of the square.
Then merchants decided there should be music in the air and contracted with a radio station to pipe music to the tower.
P.N. Hirsch, a clothing department store, moved from the square to a shopping center in 1972 in search of larger and more modern quarters. The old Hotel State closed.
The P.N. Hirsch building was purchased by Ivan Zwick, who operates two stores on the square.
The Orpheum Theater was closed in August 1973, by the state fire marshal’s office. It was later remodeled and turned into the Marion Civic Center.
Citizens got together with the mayor and “boot-strapped the theater from a roof leaking catastrophe into one of the most attractive theaters in Southern Illinois,” Cox said.
Butler said the Civic Center has “offered a tremendous variety of outstanding programs. Some well attended. Some not so well attended. As people become more aware of the variety and worth, they will come. There will be a packed house eventually.”
In December, 1973, the F.W. Woolworth Store closed in Marion as part of the company’s policy to establish bigger supermarket operations such as the Woolco Stores.
In 1975, three businesses opened, one business closed on the square and the old Hotel State building was purchased by John T. Anderson.
Distinctive Interiors Inc., an exclusive furniture store, opened in the remodeled quarters of the Woolworth building and The Place, a women’s clothing store and the Quality Stamp Redemption Store, opened in the remodeled quarters of P.N. Hirsch.
Anderson spent about seven months last year cleaning up the old hotel and solving most of the mechanical problems of the first floor.
The six-story white stone building, empty for three years, is now home for the Citadel Office Services Inc., the Wholesale Silver Shoppe and a counseling and psychotherapy service.
The 64 year old building used first as an office building and bank, then as a hotel for 29 years before being used again as an office building, is being resurrected as an office center, says Anderson.
Anderson is “reaching for the second and third floors” of the building he describes as an “architectural building of aesthetic value that needs saving.” Those floors should be finished in three years, he said.
Eventually Anderson plans to remodel all six floors.
Anderson wanted to save the old building and help “to put business back on the square.”
W.T. Grant, a national department store chain, went bankrupt and closed its store in Marion in late 1975. The building is being remodeled. J.C. Penney is opening a store there in late September or October.
The opening of the Penney store “is sort of the climax of the whole thing,” said Cox.
Butler said the fact that Penney’s, which handles merchandise similar to Grant’s, is moving into downtown Marion shows that Penney’s “must have great confidence in the future of Marion.”
New business operators say they have confidence in Marion. “Business here is nice. I like it here. I think business in the downtown area will always be here,” said Lou Ann Thompson, manager of The Place, a new business.
During the merchant’s drive for new business, the Egyptian tourist train took over the former Illinois Central Gulf Railroad depot, an artist opened a shop and an office equipment store, a book exchange, a new restaurant, a woman’s clothing store, an auto parts store, a shoe store and a real estate company, among others, opened in Marion.
A second Mack’s Big Star opened in Marion. Cline-Vick Pharmacy opened in a new building and the Community Saving and Loan Association and Karr-Barnfield Motors opened in remodeled facilities. The hospital expanded its facilities.
The former depot of the Chicago and Eastern Illinois Railroad was renovated by the Lions Club. The depot is used for rental offices and for banquets and meetings by the Lions Club and the public.
Part of the $21 million in total improvements include businesses in a new shopping center, the Town and Country Village.
The new shopping center and two other shopping centers along Illinois 13 in Marion apparently have not hurt downtown merchants. In fact, the shopping centers have helped merchants, said Bill Bainbridge, a Marion jeweler.
The centers draw people to Marion to shop. After shopping in the centers, the visitors come to downtown Marion, Bainbridge said.
While merchants wooed new business, the city repaired and replaced curbs and guttering, improved streets, built new parking lots, widened intersections, built public rest rooms, remodeled city hall and experimented with free parking for 30 minutes during the week and all day on Saturdays.
“We feel we have adequate parking at this point,” Butler said. The city has more than 600 parking spaces in the downtown area.
Improvements by the city were estimated at $410,000 by Butler.
The city spent about $120,000 for the tower, about $150,000 for the civic center, about $23,000 for the rest rooms, about $45,000 for street, curb, guttering and sidewalk improvements, about $67,000 for parking lots and about $6,000 for city hall remodeling.
The improvements are not finished.
“I think you have to have a continuing program of improvements. Do a little here and do a little there, continuously,” Butler said.
“The city can improve sidewalks, curbs, guttering and streets and maintain a high level of efficiency in our parking areas. We must make plans for traffic control,” Butler said.
“Traffic control may mean some one-way streets downtown and possibly a new street,” Butler said.
“The downtown area is probably more attractive today than it ever has been. A great deal of the credit must go to the business community itself,” Butler said.
Bainbridge credits the downtown improvements to community cooperation and a workable plan.
“Maybe we made the tower and downtown area too attractive,” Butler mused as he pondered traffic “trying to get around the square.”
(Southern Illinoisan, Sunday, August 29, 1976)