Following the Christmas parade and Small Business Saturday, downtown Laramie seems to be growing and improving.
The Laramie Main street Alliance, which organized the aforementioned events, will be holding several holiday events downtown. Trey Sherwood, the director of the alliance, said that there are free horse carriage rides downtown every Saturday as well as “Mistletoe Mosey,” a scavenger hunt for consumers that shop downtown. Sherwood said that there are many potential repercussions if the downtown area is not preserved.
“Shoshone has many buildings that are falling in on themselves which is so sad,” Sherwood said. “If we concentrate all of our efforts outside of the district or are fine with people going to Fort Collins to shop all the time, businesses will close, buildings will be boarded up, we’ll lose a sense of our past and who we are as a community.”
Carly Ann Anderson, executive director of the Alliance for Historic Wyoming, said that the downtown area is special because of its historic roots. Anderson said that they are planning on looking for many facade grants for 2015. The grants are a match grant that matches every $200 dollars with $100 for facade renovations.
Anderson also said that she is happy that the vision clinic is planning to rebuild after having suffered a fire last summer.
Laura Grady, optician at the Vision Clinic, said that the clinic was able to move to their temporary location quickly with help from the Sherwood and the Laramie Main Street Alliance. Grady said that she really loves downtown and that many other businesses helped out the clinic.
“I love downtown, working downtown and having the fire, everyone was so supportive and really excited for us to get back on our feet,” Grady said, “Dodd’s Shoes took all of our mail for a whole month. Undercover Beds really supported us, really all of downtown did.”
She also said that downtown is the thing she loves the most about Laramie.
“Downtown is the heart of Laramie, everything that we do strives after that. We have such a huge college community. It’s the people, I walk down the street and everyone smiles and everyone is so helpful,” Grady said.
Lily Clark, sales clerk at Second Story Books, said that the businesses of downtown Laramie are in a symbiotic relationship.
“Small Business Saturday deserves a huge thanks from downtown, the sales were contingent on showing receipts from other businesses,” Clark said. “It really encouraged people to come downtown and shop at several businesses. I don’t see us as being in competition, our success is everyone else’s success and vice versa.”
