I have for some time now been carrying around the notion that the commercial surge I see downtown, the new stores and restaurants and hotels, will carry so far into the housing downturn, that it will simply overlap past the ensuing plateau and deliver us safely to the other side. Stores will come and go, but there is so much activity that I don't believe we'll have any dead zones for years to come.

If the housing downturn is a 5 or 6 year process, of which the first year it nearly complete, and the bottom is around year 3 or 4, then we really needed to see business growth for at least the next two years or so.

I never thought it very likely that we'd empty out. I thought there would be a 3 steps forward, 2 steps back progression. But I need only look around.

The new buildings coming on the market, and the 8 new restaurants, the new motel next to the parking garage, and all the other developments almost guarantee it.

See, from my perspective, I need to concern myself with my own store, whether or not I can sustain my business, and the vitality of the surrounding commercial district. All these new developments are going to create vitality for the near future.

Notice, all you bubble busters, I'm not saying these new businesses are going to do well, or even turn a profit. I'm not sanguine about their longterm prospects, and I'm even less hopeful that some of the existing restaurants are going to do well.

But as I've said before, I think any business which is well enough capitalized to even open downtown these days is probably strong enough to last a couple years or more. They may be bleeding red ink all along, but they won't show it from the outside.

And from a bottom line perspective, I don't care if they're losing money in the short run. Some will make mid-course corrections, others will quit, others will sell out. But all that is several years down the road.

So there are going to be all these new shiny businesses opening over the next couple of years, and then at least another couple of years as they mature.

This is mostly good news for my store. Normally, I have to pay a lot of money to connect to that kind of hustle and bustle. But it has suddenly emerged in the surrounding blocks over the last 3 years, and looks to get even more busy over the next 3 years, and here I am in the middle of it.

I'm no longer in the hinterlands, no longer a half block past the foot traffic.

I'll need to continue the process of becoming more mainstream, more new books and games and toys, while trying not to lose my niche credentials.

I used to worry a lot more about the parking, but I've found that most regulars manage to make it, and strangely, the more parking spots are filled, the busier downtown is. I figure that two of the new restaurants are taking the place of existing locations, and that we've lost at least 4 other restaurants recently, so the trade off may not be as bad as I initially thought.

The only bad news is that it makes it less likely that my own landlord will moderate my rent, or at least moderate my rent increase. I can hope he'll be happy to have a tenant that is approaching 30 years in downtown. I can hope he'll want us to stay, and understand that just because downtown is full doesn't mean everyone is doing well.

But, I have a couple of years of heavy traffic I think I can count on, and it's my job to tap into that market as much as I can.