Downtown Smithfield shopkeepers voice frustrations

SMITHFIELD — One downtown shop has closed its doors and another is leaving town because of what their owners call chronic challenges.

One of them is parking.

Jud Patterson and Suzanne Taylor moved Oak City Collection to South Third Street in 2017.

“We noticed that parking wasn’t enforced,” Patterson said, referring to Smithfield’s two-hour limit on on-street parking.

Sheriff’s deputies were among the chief offenders, he said. “We noticed a lot of law enforcement cars — they would park all day,” said Patterson, who closed his storefront this past weekend.

A lack of parking downtown made the problem worse, he said. “The customer would say, ‘We can’t find a parking spot,’ ” Patterson said.

He and others suggested a fix. “The idea was to make Third Street go one way … and have angle parking on our side of the street and just get rid of the parking on the other side,” Patterson said.

The idea came up at meetings of the Downtown Smithfield Development Corp., but the discussions always stalled, Patterson said. “Every time we would talk about it, the answer was, ‘That’s part of the master plan. We’ve got to do a traffic study,’ ” he said.

John Bilott is co-owner of The Twisted Willow, a home decor shop that has decided to leave downtown. “The parking situation definitely negatively impacts the businesses downtown,” he said. “The parking on Third Street is tied up Monday to Friday by the courthouse, and many vehicles park in these two-hour spots from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. every day.”

Parking can be unsafe too, Bilott said. “Rarely does a day go by that someone does not lose a mirror or the occasional door,” he said.

Bilott supported angled parking on Third Street. “As president of the DSDC earlier this year, I made a formal request from the DSDC for this exact proposal,” he said.

Other suggested improvements have also failed to gain traction, Bilott said, including better lighting on South Third and Front streets. “During this year’s Ham & Yam Festival, we learned the downtown electrical panels are insufficient for significant events,” he said.

Sporadic foot traffic downtown is another challenge, Patterson said. “Events are great to bring foot traffic on parade nights and on Christmas tree lighting night,” he said. “But those are seasonal things that only happen once a year.”

Patterson thinks downtown Smithfield could benefit from efforts to make it a regular destination.

“I think we need some targeted marketing — something that actually shows a picture of a couple of the buildings downtown and mentions maybe taking a movie, visiting the Ava Gardner Museum, shopping a little bit, and something like that,” he said.

Patterson fears that some recent changes, including the creation of a social district, have come too late. “Some Town Council members don’t see the value,” he said. “They’re not thinking ahead, and all these worries the council has about the social district haven’t happened in other towns.”

Bilott has decided to sell his building at 119 S. Third St. and move The Twisted Willow elsewhere. “When we first opened our business in 2021, we were excited about the potential,” he said. “Having the courthouse directly across the street, we thought thousands of people would be walking past daily.”

That didn’t happen, Bilott said. “The courthouse takes up all the parking anywhere near our store, and those going to court aren’t shopping,” he said.

The lack of weekday foot traffic has forced him to look elsewhere, Bilott said. “It is for these reasons we have listed our building for sale and are looking to take our business and expertise in advertising and event planning to another town that will appreciate us and we all can benefit from it,” he said.

Michael Scott is Smithfield’s town manager and chairman of the DSDC board. This is the first time he’s heard about recent parking problems. “We were having problems a year ago with staffing and being able to enforce the two-hour parking,” he said. “Since then, the Police Department’s hired a public safety aid position, and that person is responsible for enforcing the parking downtown.”

“I see parking tickets coming in,” Scott added. “So I know that they’re writing them both for two-hour parking and parking on the sidewalks.”

The town has secured a $135,000 state grant to study downtown traffic, and during Oktoberfest on Oct. 12, the firm doing the study will have a booth to hear community feedback.

As for lighting, Scott said downtown lighting was designed to create a certain atmosphere. “We did receive a lighting grant,” he added.  “We are looking at lighting and trying to decide the best ways to add to it.”

The DSDC is staging events to increase foot traffic downtown, Scott said. “We decided to create a bigger event for Oktoberfest and put all of our energy into that,” he said. “We’ve added a whole child area with bounce houses and … petting zoos and stuff like that.”

The town and DSDC are working to drum up business, especially during the holiday season, Scott said. “To bring people more downtown, we’re going to have double the carriage rides that we used to have,” he said. “And we’re trying to get people to shop small and shop local first.”

Scott acknowledged the disconnect between the town’s efforts and the concerns that Patterson and Bilott expressed. “I don’t think that those statements are accurate at all,” he said. “But I understand they may just not understand why things are done a certain way, and maybe that’s a problem for us at DSDC.

“Maybe we need to better communicate with what’s going on. We’re trying to schedule a meeting … to try to make sure that we are communicating with downtown businesses so everybody knows what’s going on and how these events are going to impact them.”

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