McComb’s historic retail and services district — Downtown McComb — bears the scars of failed decisions across decades, as well as a spirit of hope that something good is on the brink.
Years ago, Downtown was a bustling place, growing out of needs from the new town, McComb City, established in 1872 along with the Railroad Maintenance Shops. Generally, the area is bounded by Broadway, State Street, Railroad Boulevard and Canal Street, with Main Street in the middle. Grocery stores, department stores, hotels, drug stores, law offices and more filled the commercial area.
But changing shopping patterns, civil rights strife in the 1960s, the closure of the railroad shops and a general lack of professional and political attention have brought the district to its current, vastly different situation.
The late Billy Neville, a veritable fount of information on local history, once said the city even tried to sell itself to McComb’s wealthy entrepreneurial McColgan brothers after the Great Depression.
To compound difficulties, in 1972 the city built a pedestrian mall blocking vehicular traffic on Main between Broadway and Front. It took 13 years before “Sunshine Square” was demolished to return customer traffic, but retail trends had changed.
Yet today, some businesses thrive Downtown and new ones are being nurtured. Some shining examples of good news: The Palace Theatre, Broadway Deli, Downtown Fitness and plans for a “1905” family dining experience.
The two blocks of Main Street today, with lots of vacant parking spaces during business hours, give observers the inaccurate assumption of little activity — so far from its reality even three or four decades ago.
“I want to add value to Downtown,” said former selectman Shawn Williams, a pastor who is the latest owner of the old McColgan Hotel property at the northeast corner of Main and Front streets. “I see Downtown coming back and I believe we can be proud of it again.”
While he’s renting out part of the property, he said he’s looking at ideas for further development.
He and other business owners will see progress on those new “ideas” soon when First Bank and Pike National Bank, will fund a Main Street façade clean-up and improvement project that is expected to be completed by Thanksgiving.
Elsewhere, family owners of The Morning Rail restaurant on the south side of Main Street see potential for their enterprise, especially as nearby businesses add foot traffic.
Brothers Jere and Jed Benner say they hope the shopping district can become part of a vacation destination along the CN Railroad, as well as benefit from Palace Theatre visitors.
First Bank executive Vickie Webb, who’s involved with a quiet Main Street focus, reminds McComb residents that “it’s everybody’s Downtown.” She said she hopes planning options will increase with additional financial support urged from the City of McComb.
Tom Walman of Oxford, a former McComb mayor and state legislator, said new, dedicated leadership will be needed if Downtown is to be more vibrant again.
“It’s hardly ever been anyone’s full-time job to ensure the success of Downtown as a whole,” he said in an interview before the COVID-19 pandemic.
Police Chief Garland Ward said before his dismissal this past week that he’s optimistic about Downtown, although his officers have been called to reports of excessive social activity generated in the late-operating hours allowed by the Arts & Entertainment District ordinance, created about two years ago.
Zoning chief Henry Green also sees difficulties in urging property owners to maintain and improve existing property. For example, he said, across the past two years he’s sent letters urging upgrades to business facades — and received no responses.
“We can’t make them re-model,” Green notes, although owners are legally “obligated to keep up their property.”
He speculated that some Downtown property owners are awaiting a legal decision on whether the old JCPenney building at Main and Broadway, which collapsed five years ago, will be rehabilitated or demolished.
Mayor Quordiniah Lockley, in his second term, casts blame widely for Downtown’s situation: “We allowed Downtown to die,” he said recently, as decades of shopping opportunities moved toward the west side of town near Interstate 55.
But he says he sees Downtown’s potential within the focus of the Arts & Entertainment District. Downtown also is part of an Historic Preservation District.
Lockley said he hears public demand for more dining and entertainment choices there, as well as upstairs apartment living.
“Things are happening,” he says, somewhat cryptically, and cites increased traffic Downtown spurred by new business and plans for new business.
Property owners Catherine Brooking and Chuck Freeman, both in the 200 block of Main Street, continue to voice their support for more activity Downtown.
While Brooking says her beauty supply business isn’t a typical walk-in store, she participates in whatever activities are being promoted there.
And while Freeman speculates on the potential success of “a restaurant row” to bring people back downtown, developer Randy Eckman, who owns the Fox’s Pizza franchise that has been on Delaware Avenue for more than 10 years, works on a makeover down the block for what he describes as a “family oriented” pizza parlor with other boutique offerings like a cigar lounge.
Eckman also plans to re-open the popular Caboose white-tablecloth restaurant a block away from Main Street, although those plans are still in development.
Supporters of the renovated Palace Theatre say they’re aiming to make the attractive venue part of a vision like Freeman’s.
“A lot of people have done some hard work,” Eckman observes about Main Street. “I want to have something nice for my hometown.”
Next door to Railroad Boulevard, dance business owner Laci Godbold has a 10-year stake in her Main Street property.
“Downtown is coming back to life,” she predicted.
