(Photo/Christopher Tran/Connector)

David Rudderham
Connector Editor

 Downtown Lowell has changed. The streets are no longer one way, lines are freshly painted and new developments continue. But has it changed much?

 Most of the businesses downtown are still bars and restaurants. Some people embrace that fact and think the government should adapt to the current clientele.

 John Knowles, a local bar manager of a new downtown restaurant, and Tiffany Carter, a local bartender, both think that a happy hour would be a good idea for downtown businesses, given that most of the businesses here sell alcohol in some regard. However, the other types of businesses struggle and according to Renée Welcome, a local patron, that may be due to parking.

 “Free parking in the garages during the weekends,” says Welcome in hopes that weekenders would come downtown where parking is normally difficult to find.

 But according to Lowell’s plans for downtown, parking development depends on multiple factors such as possible future office real estate and occupancy rates. For example, the garages are packed during the day, which makes it hard to have more office real estate downtown. This is according to a plan published online by local authorities back in 2010, before the streets were modified.

 The plan to improve the confusing traffic flow and make streets safe for walking pedestrians and bikers has happened, but sometimes businesses are suffering because of the businesses themselves. According to John Barones, a manager at a local bar and restaurant, certain businesses in Lowell can give the whole place a bad reputation.

 “Stop letting bad businesses stay while letting all the good, legitimate businesses leave,” says Barones. Barones has worked in Lowell for many years and has seen a lot of good ones close down.

 According to Barones, the businesses themselves can choose to cater to better people instead of the bad type of person that could cause a fight or loud disruption to local residents.

 However, the bad types of people still hang around on the street. “I don’t like going out to lunch and being bothered by people asking for cigarettes,” says Whitney Vliet, a local patron. “Get rid of them.”

 Megan Lopez, a manager of a local bar, agrees. “Clean up the streets of all the addicts and the homeless.” According to Lopez this would be very difficult to do and there is only so much a business is even allowed to do before getting in trouble.

 “Instead of policing small businesses, go after the criminals. If I call 9-1-1, we get a strike against our business when we’re protecting our customers and doing the right thing,” says Lopez. “They should be working with the businesses instead of against them.”

 Businesses in downtown could ultimately end up fending for themselves in addition to the usual duties of running a business. According to Lopez, on Saint Patrick’s Day this year, a fight that started at Finn’s, a local bar, ended up moving to Dudley’s another local bar. “The whole thing could have been avoided or broken up,” says Lopez.

 According to Barones, this is exactly the sort of thing that could scare people away. “If someone comes downtown and sees people begging for spare change and large groups of college students outside of the bars, they’re not going to think of Lowell as a place to bring the family.”

 The current state of downtown Lowell could also be a symptom of becoming a college town. “This is absolutely a college town,” says Eric Mclean. “Is there even a debate?”

 While many have agreed that the streets should be cleaner, some still think that we should embrace the fact that Downtown Lowell has to find a way to accommodate young college students as well as families and local residents.

 “There needs to be more of a link UMass Lowell to downtown,” says Angel Silva, a local patron that just moved here from Austin, Texas.

 If there was more of a link, things would change drastically according to Barones. Although at this point, change is something that he’s used to. Barones remembers the past downtown businesses that the younger crowd will not get to see such as Centro, a restaurant on Market Street, and LaBoniche, a downtown upscale restaurant. “Yeah, it was real sad to see [Centro] go,” says Barones.