Wasilla plans for downtown laudable

Probably because the plans are still just that — plans — we haven’t said much yet about the Wasilla downtown district overlay.

The city wants to create a walk-able downtown, a pedestrian-friendly shopping district.

We find the idea laudable.

Wasilla, you probably already know, has a reputation for being kind of the exact opposite of walk-able.

Walking between even the major shopping centers there — from Carrs to Fred Meyer, for instance — can sometimes be kind of harrowing. Walking from Wal-Mart to Target would seem almost suicidal.

There have been attempts to make this better, sure. The tunnel under the Parks Highway near the park on Wasilla Lake is a famous example, with its periodic flooding and persistent vandalism problems.

Wasilla is kind of a victim of its own success. Businesses here generate so much revenue that sales tax has completely supplanted property tax. We’re sure it’s a situation other municipalities envy.

But with that success has come a reputation for being a place where, development-wise, anything goes. It is, we often say in the newsroom, the only place we can think of where a big box like the Fred Meyer store sits on a piece of prime lakefront property.

The downtown district overlay, we think, is an attempt to reverse some of that, to create a city with both the convenience of modern big box shopping and the charm of mom-and-pop, downtown merchants.

Wasilla, of course, doesn’t have to look far for an example of what that kind of nurturing small business environment can produce. Palmer’s downtown has lately been revitalized, with major storefronts morphing into clothiers and eateries.

There has long been a thriving local business community there, where merchants support one another and gather together at regular intervals to boost each other up.

In the summer, we have often joked that Palmer is a small town with a festival problem. Each week seems to bring a new celebration, be it a farmer’s market or a Friday Fling or a locally celebrated holiday like Colony Days.

Wasilla can have that, too. But the reason Palmer’s events like this weekend’s Colony Christmas are so successful is that it has a place for people to gather. There is a centralized core in Palmer of merchants all on one street, with a decently sized meeting space nearby in the Palmer Train Depot.

For Wasilla to be as successful it will need to create such a space of its own. Of course, Palmer didn’t achieve its walk-able downtown by accident. It has zealously guarded its central core, allowing in major retailers but only outside of that district.

And conversely, it is by choice that a major Alaska highway runs at ground level through the core of Wasilla. Remember our city leaders fought in the 1970s for the highway to come through town at street level and for the commerce the highway brings. We live the consequences — both good and bad — of that decision daily.

For Wasilla to now achieve a walk-able downtown will take time. We wish the city leaders luck as they work to create a pedestrian friendly core.