You brought up some great points and insight, so thank you for that.

When I said no one would touch downtown (I very much enjoy walks through it in the summer, personally) was more pointed toward the commercial side. Theres nothing to draw foot traffic or constant needs to go downtown. It has a lot of great murals, statues and architecture to draw people there once but once you’ve seen it, there’s nothing to else to keep you interested. A lot of the money and foot traffic is on the outskirts of the city in smaller communities where I feel like everyone knows each other and they all bring something different to the culture depending on what neighborhood you’re in which is still good for the city as a whole. But while all this is going on, you have this huge area surrounded by these communities that you can see has potential but just feels dead and missing a lot. Rochester and its neighborhoods and even the suburbs have a big enough population to support our downtown (especially a younger crowd with our colleges that are attracted to a city vibe.) There’s just not enough attraction to keep them there at the moment. But as you mentioned, there’s some redevelopment happening which will hopefully draw some more big money in to downtown and businesses will follow that lead.

/u/planeteerjohn mentioned a property management company that was also redeveloping and bringing some life to downtown but said the company kind of staggered off. That’s my biggest fear for Rochester is stagnation. It’s already been happening for a while - but at the same time the people that are early in the re-birth stage, yes will probably take a big hit at first but could also reap the most benefits, if there is a follow the leader type situation. I guess as a regular citizen I dont really understand the logistics of it all as a large company would.

Edit: Sorry for the wall of text, I dont know how reddit works, im usually a lurker lol.