Editor’s note: This is the first in a two-part series focusing on the battle to increase traffic to the shops on South Main Street.

No matter where you look around downtown Kokomo, you easily see something is happening.

The same isn’t as noticeable a half-mile away on South Main Street.

Don’t think it’s gone unnoticed by the shop owners there.

The downtown library is under renovation.

Recently, 75 volunteers of the Kokomo Downtown Association planted 7,140 Supertunia cuttings in 340 baskets. Baskets already hang from the light posts on West Sycamore Street from St. Joseph Hospital to Union Street. Soon, baskets will adorn light posts throughout downtown as well.

Daily, city workers hammer away on the ongoing “bump-outs” project at several downtown intersections, including the corners of the Howard County Courthouse Square.

Much of this work is part of the Greater Kokomo Economic Development Alliance’s goal of continuing its Downtown Development Strategy.

“More than 5,000 people attended downtown events last year and 200 people volunteered to beautify downtown,” said Jeb A. Conrad, president and CEO of The Alliance. “We want to bring people downtown to showcase it so people can see what type of opportunities there are. Our downtown is our living room for our guests.”

However, business owners see South Main Street’s opportunities as mostly only one-way avenues: People finding their business area and businesses receiving support from local economic-development leaders.

Formerly located at 101 N. Buckeye St., Isreal Affordable Fashions was part of Kokomo’s living room.

Not anymore.

Isreal Les recently exited the living room and downtown’s ongoing hustle-and-bustle and found a “quaint” home at 916 S. Main St.

On a recent Monday morning, Shannon Tuttle and Angie Abney sat at a patio table outside Les’ store waiting for it to open. But he’s closed Sundays and Mondays so they had to make arrangements to return.

If only it was that simple.

The women heard Les had relocated and they wanted to purchase a hard-to-find Juicy Couture or Louis Vuitton designer purse to match spring outfits.

However, like many who find their way up Main Street, if you don’t know exactly where your destination is located, you could have some trouble getting back to it.

And if you drive by too fast, you can miss a business and have to circle the block.

Blame it on the fact that it’s a one-way street.

“It’s really nice up here, but we had to go down Union Street [one way north] off Markland and then come back up Main to get here. That’s a lot of driving and work,” said Tuttle. “But I heard he had the best designer purses, and G-Shock watches so we’ll come back.”

If Michael R. Shallenberger had his way, the first thing needed to help build business traffic to South Main street is making the one-way street a two-way.

“Good grief, yes, it should be a two-way street,” said Shallenberger, owner of M R Shallenberger Realty Inc., 902 S. Main St. and 919 S. Union St.

“To help traffic, [Main Street] needs to be a two-way street and Union street needs to be two way, too.”

SOUTH MAIN STREET

Besides planting being done by business owners, there’s no official beautification projects in the South Main Street business district, an area stretching from Harrison Street to Markland Avenue.

There are no hanging baskets or decorative trees. There are no pedestrian bump-outs.

What you find on South Main Street is a small collection of “quaint” businesses trying to create more customer traffic.

The businesses range from antique shops — one attracting more out-of-town shoppers than local customers — to a restaurant to a spa.

However, like the one-way street it is, many Main Street businesses feel all the attention — dollars, projects and the annual farmers’ market — has been headed one way, toward downtown.

“This used to be big area for businesses. We had restaurants, a drug store and apartments,” said Shallenberger, who has been in the Main Street neighborhood for more than 40 years.

“We’ve had some turnover with businesses coming in and leaving, but at one time we had a dress shop, a jewelry store and my father had a barber shop down here. For years, we were known as Kokomo’s oldest shopping area other than downtown. It used to be busy all the time down here and we were important enough that we once merited a firehouse down here [off Markland].

“We’ve seen a lot of changes, some good, some not as good. The economy has hurt us as much as it has hurt anyone else, but downtown seems to be doing good.”

One thing that once helped South Main Street businesses, said Shallenberger, was the Historic South Main District organization that was formed in 2004.

Like the Merchants of Westside Village Association — created after several businesses closed or relocated during a five-year street project in the Dixon Road area — Shallenberger said the organization’s purpose was to look out for South Main Street businesses when it appeared no one else would.

With a purpose to run the farmers’ market and investigate historic districts for funding sources, according to a brochure, the organization was comprised by business people, residents and supporters “of our quaint neighborhood.”

“Over the last 10 years, our area has been overlooked and it’s time we take it into our own hands and begin to make a difference,” Shallenberger said.

Yearly dues were $35. But they apparently weren’t paid and participation dwindled as more customer traffic headed to the malls and a need for the organization vanished.

But it wasn’t the only one, Shallenberger said.

“We also had the Markland and Main Merchants Association, but all that died,” he said. “It’s hard for a service organization. No one wanted to do the work. We’ve been up and down here. We are not as bad as the Kokomo Mall, but it’s been bad at times.

“We had the farmers’ market here before downtown had it. It was a nice couple of years when it was here. There was a lot of traffic up here then.”

However, South Main Street isn’t the only area wishing it had the farmers’ market to create additional business traffic.

“Either place [South Main Street or Westside Village area] would be better for the farmers’ market than where they have it now,” said Paul H. Hardacre, owner of Blue Ribbon Laundries and a founding member of the Westside business organization.

There are more than 120 businesses in the westside area.

“There’s not much of a draw having it downtown,” continued Hardacre. “I go downtown to go to the YMCA, but that’s not drawing me to the market.”

• K.O. Jackson is the Kokomo’s Tribune business writer. He can be reached at 765-854-6739 or via e-mail kirven.jackson@kokomotribune.com