Earlier this week, I wrote about absentee owners and what distance can cost a downtown. But there is another form of neglect, closer to home, and harder to excuse.
When local ownership is at fault, all 5 foot 2 inches, or a little less, of me rises up in indignation on behalf of the commercial architecture that was built to endure.
The buildings on Main Street owned by people who live here, who know these streets, and who understand what is happening present another problem.
These are owners who have chosen, for years, to do nothing while deterioration takes its course. Their names deserve to be nailed to the door of Castle Church alongside Martin Luther’s Ninety-Five Theses.
One neglected building makes the next one harder to fill. One empty storefront stills the street and lessens its sense of direction. Over time, what was once a connected commercial corridor becomes a series of interruptions.
Local ownership is a different kind of absence. Impossible to explain. Impossible to excuse.
And when such ownership intersects with public leadership, when those entrusted with shaping the future of a city are themselves stewards of declining buildings, the question sharpens.
Buildings do not simply age. They are either cared for, or they are not.
Main Street reflects not only the history we inherited, but the care we choose to give it now. Today we see both realities at once, roofs collapsing to the ground below, and alongside them, signs of revitalization with new businesses opening their doors.
That effort is being held back.
Not by what we lack, but by what we are allowing.
We have known for years that neglect is caused by absentee owners and, ‘worser’ still, by local owners who know better.
The city, in trying to work with some of these owners, can’t succeed when some refuse to take action. of any kind. This problem is not always as simple as the city putting its foot down.
No matter how much huffing and puffing I might do in three minutes at a City Council meeting, or through a temper tantrum in the middle of Main Street, the reality at present is this, now we are told we are in a dire financial situation. There is no money dedicated to the stewardship of these empty buildings.
So this message is for owners, near and far, for those charged with enforcing what is already on the books, and for current leadership. Ron Weasley in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone says to Harry Potter, “You need to sort out your priorities,” speaking of Quidditch or studying. Quidditch being more important, of course.
But Rocky Mount has its own version of that choice.
Main Street Rocky Mount 