Main Street VW sets Hidden Spaces tour

DAVE MOSIER/independent editor

Van Wert’s downtown area has gone through a number of changes during the past decades, with the bustling 1950s followed three decades later by years of vacant buildings and declining business, until a downtown renaissance that began earlier this decade.

Obviously, one way to maintain a thriving downtown is to let potential businesses know about interesting, but little known, spaces in the downtown area.

That’s the premise for Main Street Van Wert’s Hidden Spaces initiative, which allows people, including those interested in locating a business downtown, see several vacant buildings that would make good sites for retail and other businesses.

The event, which will be held this year from 5-8 p.m. Friday, August 10, offers area residents a chance to conduct self-guided tours of five downtown spaces.

“It’s very interesting to people, obviously, and they want to see not only storefronts, but they want to see upstairs, downstairs,” Main Street Van Wert Director Mitch Price said, noting that this year’s locations will be revealed on August 10.

“I think there is a couple of buildings that people haven’t seen before,” Price said. “There’s one that, it will take a little bit longer to go through, but it has some pretty cool features, some pretty cool character.”

The tours have always been popular, with the 250 tickets available for the tour sold out each year since the event was established four years ago. Price said the event is on track this year to sell out as well. Tickets cost $10 and are available at the Main Street Van Wert office, 136 E. Main St. in Van Wert.

The MSVW director said the downtown spaces on the tour this year are all pretty unique for Van Wert, adding that the whole purpose of the tour is to bring foot traffic to downtown, not only to the stores on the tour, but to neighboring businesses as well, as well as spur interest in someone purchasing the tour buildings for a new business.

“I think in the next 5-10 years, I think there’s going to be a push (for downtown buildings),” Price said, noting that, with several buildings now being renovated for future business and residential use by their owners, more interest is being generated in the downtown area, as well as in the creation of boutique stores like those already in the downtown area.

The increase in popularity of downtowns is coupled with waning interest in malls and other large-scale retail developments — especially with the decline of many “big box” stores that have been unable to compete with the online popularity of Amazon and other Internet retailers.

Another plus for the tour, Price noted, is that people can take the tour early and then head down to Fountain Park for a free concert as part of the Fountain Park Summer Music Series.